January 2020: mission in Djougou in Benin
Assessment of a vegetable garden managed by a vegetable cooperative in Benin
Upon request of a Belgian association "ASBL le Verso du Miroir", Louis Jestin (AVe) carried out a mission to assess the development of a vegetable garden located in Passari, near Djougou. The association set it up in 2015/2016 and entrusted the management to a women's cooperative. Louis Jestin has been working for the fourth time on this vegetable garden since 2017 (an intervention at the beginning of each year).
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Learning to use new tools,
here manual airplanter
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The water supply installation allows year-round production | Watering is done by sprinkling |
The non-profit organization Verso du Miroir is a Belgian association operating since 2008 in Benin, mainly in the villages on the outskirts of Djougou (located 460 km north of Cotonou) by having build a module of 3 classes and an office in different schools, by young Belgian and Beninese during the summer school holidays. In one of the villages, Passari, in 2015, the association set up and equipped a 2 hectare-vegetable garden by entrusting the management to a women's village cooperative : COOPMA (Cooperative of Vegetable Producers) Passari. The goal of the garden is to provide food and income to women for their children. The vegetable garden beginnings were very difficult. The vegetable garden was very well equipped : a fence, a store, a water supply system allowing the irrigation during the dry season (between 6 and 7 months) and therefore production all year round. But the main problem was the lack of skills in the management and the conduct of a vegetable garden. During previous interventions, Louis Jestin, on the basis of an updated diagnosis, has established a roadmap for each year, specifying the technical and economic points to reach in terms of market gardening. Progress has been made : more production, an increasingly diversified range of vegetables, technical control of production in constant progress, good recording of cash inflows and outflows and of the women attendance, a fair management method (profit distributeion according to the women attendance), regular management control done by an outside person.
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The vegetable garden produces a range of 14 vegetables,
first : cabbage
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The vegetable garden produces artemisia,
a plant that cures malaria
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The January 2020 mission concluded that the Passari vegetable garden has reached cruising speed thanks to its watering system (sprinkler irrigation) improvement, to the successful artemisia cultivation (a plant that cures malaria, 1st cause of death in Africa), to the production range of 14 vegetables, 5 fruits, 2 crops during rainy season (corn and soybeans). The cooperative's financial accounts are positive. The profit is distributed to the women working in the garden.
During the mission, the expert focused on these actions : learn to use new toolshaving many agronomic advantages to reduce the work drudgery and to improve the work efficiency. He carried out demonstrations and training in the use of these tools as well as for the improvement of the nursery. He established a new roadmap for 2020, with new targets : application for organic farm accreditation of the vegetable garden, introduction of a poultry farm and establishment of a daycare for children of women working in the garden.
Louis Jestin - AVe Expert