Farmer Ownership of AMSP–Burkina

Lead Organization:

Association Minim Sông Pânga (AMSP–Burkina)

Partner Organizations:

CIRAD (Burkina Faso); RSM, Soil, AE, and University of Reading teams; media partners (local radio stations, video production specialist); and project stakeholders (technical and administrative agents of the State, NGOs, etc.)

Community of Practice:

West Africa

Countries:

Burkina Faso

Duration:

11/2023—11/2026

Overview:

Three  years after project implementation, data capitalization has made possible a data management system with a downloadable app. Discussions with researchers have shown its value if used properly. However, use within AMSP–Burkina  has not lived up to expectations because of a lack of ownership. Researchers understand that the genuine involvement of farmers through a co-learning process contributes greatly to R&D success. Vigorous reform of AMSP–Burkina is needed to make the organization more visible and professional in supporting its members in the process.

Analysis of AMSP’s partner projects shows how farmers are involved in all aspects of the value chain: production, food preservation, processing, distribution, food preparation and consumption, and waste management. To ensure successful transitions and transformations, actions must be geared toward constant efforts. For R&D to have an impact, producers at the grassroots level must change their attitude by setting up committed and responsible organizations. Existing or future farmer networks or learning groups will then be supported by researchers and other development partners. Also, all the players involved must agree on the need for real synergy in interventions in the farming environment. Adoption of the FRN approach by AMSP farmers is a lever for success. A start has been made with the endogenous animators who learned to lead FRN groups by setting up trials, collecting data, and conducting inter-farmer visits.

Grant Aims:

The overall goal is to conduct an evolutionary change process for the FRN process, gradually involving the communes of intervention and CRFS and non-CRFS projects. 

Specifically, the project aims to:

  • Draw on the experiences of other farmers’ organizations in Niger and Mali to build a farmer-focused database that will facilitate the measurement of changes within households and farms. 
  • Develop, per discussions at CoP 2023 in Niamey, a communication strategy to support technology dissemination (scaling up).
  • Develop an inclusive advocacy strategy involving decision-makers at all levels (commune, region, country, inter-country).

Outputs and Outcomes:

Outputs:

  • Documents of various kinds produced on the AMSP–Burkina organization and operation and FRN groups, including videos and booklets on FRN groups and reports from AMSP–Burkina bodies (minutes of meetings, annual reports); scientific publications produced where possible 
    • Booklet on PICSA approach applied to realities of AMSP–Burkina produced in agreement with AMSP–Burkina resource persons 
  • AMSP–Burkina data collection and management application, database design manual, and database operations manual
    • Activity reports
    • Directory of digital data collection forms
    • Computer science student thesis
    • Charters for database creation and operation manuals
    • Publications
  • Radio recordings and booklets on social network communication and AMSP–Burkina’s advocacy experiences
  • Study reports and publications on use of data to assess impacts of agroecological transition and household foods transformation
  • Reports of monitoring-evaluation meetings and annual project reports (narrative and financial) produced 

Outcomes: 

  • Promotion of existence of dynamic, autonomous FRN groups and greater visibility for AMSP–Burkina
  • Improvement of producers’ decision-making capacity by taking climatic and meteorological data into account
  • Grower-centered data made available, collected, and managed by growers themselves
  • Interactions facilitated between users of database through a secure system
  • Most effective communications and advocacy tools for scaling up innovations identified
  • Analysis of impact indicators on agroecological transition and food system transformations based on cross-project data
  • Qualitative change in systems through implementation and reporting of project’s second phase