Two dairy plants in Fada N’Gourma

If you have an oppportunity to go to Fada N’Gourma in the south east and if you are interested in development matters, I recommend a small tour which is very informative. Ask for the town’s dairy. You  can be sure that you will be directed to “La grande laiterie de Fada N’Gourma”, the Big Dairy of Fada N’Gourma.

And if you are invited  inside, do not hesitate. You will be amazed! It is impressive! You will feel enthusiastic! You will discover that this dairy plant is fitted with equipment of high quality, high performance and high capacity.

It can indeed process 5 000 litres of milk a day, perhaps even more. But it must process 3 000 at least. If not, it will be operating at a loss. And this is precisely what has happened since its start. It turns out a mere 800 to 900 litres a day and only 80 are sold locally. Most of its production is transported by truck to the capital Ouagadougou. There the milk is sold at the same price as in Fada N’Gourma. Transport costs and depreciation for the truck are not taken into account. When the truck will have to be replaced, there will be no money to pay for a new one.

The dairy plant is still  the property of the government, which pays a large part of the salaries. Until when? If the plant has to be privatised one day, it is quite likely that it would have to close down the same year, as has happened to other state dairy businesses in Ouagadougou (Cissê) and Bobo-Dioulasso.

But there is another dairy plant in Fada N’Gourma, run by a womens’ association, Deweral & Waltare. Since the year 2000 the women, mostly of the Fulani stock-keeper ethnic community, process and sell milk under the brand name “Nungu Kossam, “Milk from Gourma”.

I visited the plant two years ago. Already at that time it processed and sold 80 litres a day on the local market. But its expansion was in full swing, thanks to the support from an American NGO “Luther World Relief”.

At present it has moved on to new premises. It handles 200 litres of milk a day. It has customers all the way to Ouagadougou, to whom deliveries are made by the bus companies which run between Fada N’Gourma and Ouagadougou.  The women are able to make a living of their work and take pride in this. The financial situation is sound. The business is ready for further expansion. And this can not fail to happen, once the Big State Dairy will have to do without government support.

The women of the “Nungu Kossam” dairy are a living proof, with many others, of the healthy state of Burkina’s mini-dairies (See also the site of the National Union of Mini-Dairies – l’Union Nationale des Mini Laiteries et des Producteurs de Lait du Burkina Faso ).

Oddly enough,  for years the government appears to have lost interest in this kind of small dairy businesses. It continues to dream of large industrial plants (See abc Burkina n° 294 ) in spite of the fact that they have turned out to be inadequate.

Koudougou, February 2nd, 2009

Maurice Oudet

Director, SEDELAN