Peanuts Project
Entrepreneurial project
23/03/2010
It is one of Missionland's most recent projects, which started in May 2016 in Burkina Faso. It currently affects three large rural areas from which the season's peanut crop was purchased in advance: six villages in the area north of Ouahigouya, ten villages in the district northeast of Kaya, and a dozen other villages in the area south of Tenkodogo.
The Project
The initiative was born with the aim of designing a project that, on a small scale, would try to give practical solutions to the main elements of fragility found in Burkina Faso: poverty, unemployment, malnutrition and the marginal role of women in Burkinabé society.
Peanuts farming is a good source of income and is a type of crop that goes well alongside the main subsistence crops of millet and sorghum due to its natural cycle and compatibility. In rural villages it is usually understood as an ancillary crop intended for sale and not for strict family consumption. To start the production cycle, the first harvest was purchased in advance at a fair price, 20,000 CFA for a 100 kg bag, allowing the various villages to invest the money not only for the production of the coming season, but also for the their contingent needs.
A strong point of the project is the support of a local production chain in which the first phases (shelling and cleaning of the shell) are left to the individual villages, thus expanding the economy and redistribution. The harvesting and processing of peanuts involves the whole village and each family derives its income from it, depending on the division of labor and the size of the plots dedicated to crops.
Once ready for roasting and pressing into peanut paste, the product is transported to Ouagadougou to our premises, where our laboratory is equipped with modern machinery for roasting, pressing and packaging the finished product.
A strong point of the project is that it promotes the role of women and their involvement in the workplace: this is in fact our requirement for the villages and those employed in our production laboratory are three women and three men. The company has the adequate means to produce a quality product, so far highly appreciated. To date, production is around 800 kilos.
The project is not yet finished. The short-term objectives are to expand the base, involving other villages in the fair purchase of peanuts, to allocate an increasing share of the product in the fight against malnutrition, expanding the distribution network and promoting the construction of social granaries in the various villages for the storage of agricultural products.