Notes to broadcasters
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“One finger alone cannot pick up flour,” as the proverb says. In other words, “United we will win.” Inspired by this proverb, small-scale farmers in Burkina Faso have been organizing to improve their farming production and their lives for over three decades. Today, you will rarely find a village without a producers’ group, either male or female. Over time, farmers realized that only a group allows them to be strong and speak out with some credibility to their technical and financial partners in development. So, they made the decision to organize themselves into farming groups by crop or commodity sector, for example, rice farmers, cotton farmers, etc. Today, partnerships, co-operatives, federations, and confederations abound in the rural landscape of Burkina Faso.
Their objectives are noble: to contribute to the well-being of their members, to help increase farm production, to get good prices for farm products, to ease members’ access to microcredit, and to improve technical farming skills.
Boudry is the principal town of a department in the province of Ganzourgou. It is about a hundred kilometres from Ouagadougou, the capital, and includes 72 villages. In this department in 2005, a number of groups united to create the Union Départementale des Producteurs Agricoles de Boudry, or UDPA-B. The members of this group are small-scale farmers. They grow cereals, rice and cotton. In addition, within their group, they are gaining the knowledge and skills that will allow them not only to improve their lives, but also to assume responsibilities they didn’t believe they could manage.
This script shows how being part of a co-operative or group can allow women to gain new confidence, and also shows how involvement in the democratic governance of a co-operative can be a training ground for participation at other levels of governance.
The script is based on actual interviews. You could use this script as inspiration to research and write a script on a similar topic in your area. Or you might choose to produce this script on your station, using voice actors to represent the speakers. If so, please make sure to tell your audience at the beginning of the program that the voices are those of actors, not the original people involved in the interviews.
Script
TheUnion Départementale des Producteurs Agricoles de Boudry, or UDPA-B, is one of these farmers’ organizations. Our reporter, Adama Zongo, met with and interviewed two members of UDPA-B.
Prosper is a member of the farm producers’ group in Yaïka, a village located in the Boudry department of Burkina Faso, in the centre of the country. The forty years of his life do not show on his face, which expresses a certain self-confidence. He is married and the father of two young girls and three boys. His group joined UDPA-B five years ago.
Acknowledgements
Contributed by: Adama Gondougo Zongo, journalist at JADE Productions, Burkina Faso, a strategic partner of Farm Radio International.
Reviewed by: John Julian, Director, International Communications & Policy, Canadian Co-operative Association.
Thanks to:
- Djibril Sedego, host of Radio de l’unité de Boudry
- The representatives of the Yaïka and Boéna groups, members of the Union.
- The representatives of the UDPA-B
Information Sources
Interviews with:
- Simon Pierre Nana, general secretary of the Union départementale des producteurs agricoles de Boudry
- Mrs. Elisabeth Kaboré, member of the women’s group of Boéna
- Prosper Congo, member of the farm producers’ group of Yaïka
The interviews were conducted on July 2 and July 3, 2011.
Further information
Quel rôle pour les organisations paysannes du Faso? Un entretien avec Bassiaka Dao, président de la Confédération paysanne du Faso (CPF). Sos Faim, #99, p. 19-21, Fevrier/Mars 2011.http://www.sosfaim.be/pdf/publications/defis_sud/99/complet.pdf