In Burkina Faso milk production is of capital importance to a large part of the population. This is notably the case of the Peul (Fulani) women. Their income almost exclusively depends on the sale of milk.

If we can not sell our milk, we are finished!”. Together with millions of peasant farmers in the world, Mrs Korotoumou Gariko rings the alarm bell. This Fulani woman, owner of a small herd of cows, is one of the front runners in the battle over milk in Burkina Faso.  She is the secretary in charge of the empowerment of women at the National Federation of Animal Farming. She fights to defend the domestic milk trade in a country where over 10% of the inhabitants earn their living on raising cattle and which has a livestock of nearly 23 million cows, sheep and goats.

Burkina is by tradition pastoralist – like so many other West African countries – and an important part of its population gets their livelihood almost entirely from raising cattle along traditional lines. For them the production and marketing of milk is of vital importance. “Among the Fulani, if there is no milk there is no life” Mrs Gariko explains. “And for the women, milk is the only source of income. Contrary to other ethnic groups in Burkina, Fulani women do not have the right to engage in selling other food products. They live on milk and from milk.”

Starting from this situation, Mrs Gariko decided to rally the women and set up a grass root organisation, POTAL DJAMA, with the support of OXFAM Solidarité. Then in 2002, in order to further help this association of 50 women , Mrs Gariko set up a mini-dairy to process milk into yoghurt and pasteurised milk. “At the beginning the women did not believe that we could launch this on our own, but thought that sophisticated processing equipment would be necessary. Today there are five of us, buying and processing milk from two associations and we have one person in charge of the distribution … and a second would be needed!”

Unfair competition

However, everything is not entirely rosy in Mrs Gariko´s world. Like so many other production units in the country, her dairy takes the full blow of the competition from milk powder from Europe, sold at an artificially low price as a result of the European subsidies. “We have to cope with the competition from such milk. It arrives here at a selling price of 200 CFA francs a litre, whereas we have to sell ours for 300 …” The result is that Mrs Gariko must reduce her profit margin to a minimum in order to sell her yoghurts and pasteurised milk to shops in the capital or along the roadside.

In 2004 Burkina Faso imported nearly 1.648 tons of milk powder (mainly from Europe), not including the enormous amounts sold off the record, since customs offices are not efficient enough. Consumers therefore legitimately turn to products based on powder milk. An in depth study recently carried out by a Canadian agency in Burkina reports that yoghurt made from milk powder costs the consumer 10 to 15 % less than the yoghurt from local milk. The price difference for the consumer rises to 25%, if he decides to buy milk powder and add water himself to make formula milk.

Local markets must be protected!

The development of the domestic milk sector in Burkina, in view of all this, appears quite difficult. Imported milk powder enters Burkina Faso at only a 5% customs duty. Such a rate is much too low to offset the artificial subsidised price.

This obviously makes Mrs Gariko furious. “It is absolutely necessary that we protect local production. If milk is imported, it must contribute somehow to help local production by means of higher import duties. For us it is not just a case of defending our interests, it is about defending our lives!” With the National Farmers´ Federation of Burkina Faso, an OXFAM partner organisation, the women are lobbying the government. In December last year the women took to the streets to publicly express an appeal to consumers to refuse imported powder milk and to encourage local milk consumption.

“To safeguard food sovereignty, it is necessary to protect ourselves. But what we face, in particular with the Economic Partnership Agreements, is simply the extinction of small scale farming” says Mrs Gariko.

“The EPAs fight the poor, not poverty. That is why we put a request to the President of our country at the National Farmers´Day.  We should make up a list of products which must be protected. Work in this direction is also carried out by ROPPA, the network of West African Farmers´organisations. On the EPAs all of us speak the same language!”

July 13
For OXFAM Solidarité
Frédéric Janssens

PS Last minute: Mrs Gariko has just been elected President of the newly established “National Union of Mini-Dairies of Burkina Faso”, which will sell its milk under the brand name BURKINALAIT! More on this subject next week.

Koudougou, July 17, 2007
Maurice Oudet
Director, SEDELAN