May 11, 2023
A team from the SafeVeg project in Burkina Faso made a plea to the general management of the seed company NAFASO. The aim was to convince the managers of this structure to give the importance they deserve to vegetable seeds.
Story and photos: Marcel Beria
CEO of NAFASO and the National Coordinator of SAFEVEG in Burkina Faso.
During the training week for the staff of seed companies in Burkina Faso, the National Coordinator of the SafeVeg project and two of her collaborators met with the General Manager of NAFASO, one of the most important seed companies in the country. The objective of the meeting was to draw the company’s CEO’s attention to the importance of vegetable seeds. Indeed, the company Neema Agricole du Faso (NAFASO) is a Burkinabe company based in Bobo-Dioulasso and specializes in the production, marketing and distribution of improved seeds in Burkina Faso and the sub-region. The only problem is that NAFASO, despite its size, is only interested in cereal seeds such as rice and corn.
It is important to remember that African agriculture has always focused on a limited group of products that include food crops (cereals and pulses), oil crops (soybeans, groundnuts, sunflowers) and industrial crops (coffee, cocoa, tea, oil palm and rubber). Vegetable crops, which are, among other things, important for nutritional security, employment and income generation, have yet to receive much attention.
The working session with the head of the NAFASO group allowed him to explain the potential of vegetables and their importance in the food and nutritional balance of Burkina Faso and to make a real plea for his company to create a place for vegetable seeds in the shelves of its stores scattered throughout the country. The CEO welcomed the approach and promised to restructure the seed department of NAFASO which will diversify in the coming months.
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