Ouedraogo
Inoussa is the director of LAVODEC (Entrepec agricole) and President de L’union
Nationale des Cooperatives des Entrepreneurs Agricole du Burkina’Faso. He was
in Nigeria to buy ginger and also see how his country could benefit from
Nigeria and vice versa especially in cooperative related matters. In this
interview he tells how cooperative administration is structured in Burkina
Faso. Excerpts…
What is the difference
between the Burkina’ Faso Cooperative and the Nigerian Cooperative towards
Agricultural Development?
Our
cooperative is a one dynamic cooperative and we work as one association, in the
month of January, we had a special meeting to organize how the year is going to
be, and we also work together, and as the president of the organization, I will
compile what my cooperative has discussed, which will be forwarded to the
government, after which the government deliberate on and approve to help fast
track agricultural development in Burkina’ Faso. So, visiting Nigeria I cannot
compare our own agriculture with that of Nigeria, because I don’t know how the
agriculture in Nigeria is faring yet, but I can assure you that our agriculture
and cooperative in Burkina Faso is very organized, so I cannot say yet what is
working yet, here in Nigeria, it will take time before I will be able to
compare. Although I have also visited the minister of agriculture and noticed
that you have tractors here in Nigeria that can be useful for us in Burkina’ Faso,
I have made request for them, so I’m
waiting to know how we can get them, because it will help boost our agriculture
too.
Is your visitation to
compare notes, to Nigeria?
My visit to
Nigeria is a partnership visit with Debiro, we are in need of ginger in our
county, so my coming is as a result to see how we can acquire 2500 tons of
ginger and to also see what is common and different between the Nigeria and Burkina’
Faso agriculture, so that we will see if there is room for exchange of
information and what is needed here in Nigeria and what is need in Burkina’ Faso.
What are the things
discussed by your farmers during your cooperative meeting, that will be
presented to your government in this year’s budget as regards agriculture and
are you involved in budget planning for the country?
For this
year we have held meetings amongst us, as cooperative members, we are yet to
finalize on our findings at the meeting before we present it to our government,
and the key discussions during our meetings, are looking at what we need, what
is the need of our population, what is working in our agriculture, and also
things we need from the government as a cooperative to improve agriculture in
our country. We also discussed issues as regards to seeds, fertilizers, and
other necessary inputs, which I will say is the focus of our meeting.
How is government
support in Burkina’ Faso, do government obey the Maputo Declaration of 10% of
the annual budget of the nation in supporting agriculture?
Really our
government has always been helping us, but not as perfect to as reaching all
our needs, yes to a large extent, the government has tried, because 80% of the
population of Burkina’ Faso are into agriculture, so we don’t really expect the government to invest all in
agriculture as there are other areas for the country to invest in, for example,
the government has recently invested 9billion Cefa for fertilizer and 4billion Cefa
too for equipment, and other things needed to boost the country’s agricultural
yield for the year.
How will you describe
the way your cooperative is structured in your country?
Our
cooperatives are organized from the bottom to the top, and we operate 45
provinces as regions in Burkina’ Faso. We do not have states and each of the provinces,
have their own organization of agriculture, and we have 13 regions and each of
the regions has its own agriculture organizations that compose from the provinces.
From t he 13 regions we have a top that has the president that coordinates, and
I am the president.
What is your advice for
cooperative associations in Nigeria?
In terms of
population, we know that Nigeria is bigger than Burkina’ Faso- Burkina’ Faso is
a very small country, our purpose is to have international association from all countries
in Africa, to associate and to find out what agriculture needs generally to
improve in their works, creating a platform for exchange of ideas among the
countries.
How does the government
of Burkina’ Faso handle youth agriculture, and the cooperative, is it inclusive
of the youths and the aged?
Yes am a
youth and again the cooperative was not established by government, I started
the cooperative very young with few youths and later having many youths joining
us. I currently have 2,000 people in the cooperative working under me with
seriousness, which attracted our government to be sustaining us. And for me to
be the president they saw how young and devoted I was to the work, which is
fast attracting a lot of youths to the business of agriculture and the
cooperation.
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