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Parboiled Rice: a New Hope for Women in Africa

women in AfricaA women rice farmers’ cooperative in Togo has tripled its output and improved the quality of rice produced by using parboiling equipment. They received this equipment from the West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP). The corresponding increase in sales of rice has also increased household incomes, lifting women in Africa out of poverty and giving them the chance to send their children to school.

The World Bank reports that 69% of households in rural areas in Togo were living below the poverty line in 2015. Female-headed households are especially vulnerable, with 57.5% living in poverty, because women in Africa lack the same economic opportunities afforded to men. With equipment from the WAAPP, the Femmes Vaillantes cooperative in Anié, Togo, is fighting back.

Success of the Femmes Vaillantes Cooperative

The Femmes Vaillantes women’s cooperative began in 2007 with just 12 farmers. Through WAAPP training, the women farmers in the cooperative began using a rice transplanting technique that increased their output by more than four metric tons per hectare.

Parboiled rice is in high demand in West Africa, and watché, a popular meal whose main ingredient is parboiled rice, drives the market. Because of this demand, the women of the Femmes Vaillantes cooperative in Togo were well accustomed to the process of parboiling. However, they only recently acquired the equipment to maximize efficiency. Their previous method of parboiling was time consuming. According to Ebiro Kadokilah, the head of the cooperative, the old process resulted in the loss of three kilos of rice for every 100 kilos produced.

Now, the cooperative produces 800 kilos every week without any loss, tripling output. Increased profits have provided Kadokalih and the other members of her cooperative with the means to rise from poverty, for themselves in the present and even more so for their children in the future.

“I am a widow,” Kadokalih said, “and I am finally able to provide for my family. Most important, I manage to pay the education expenses of all my children.”

With the profits from added sales, the Femmes Vaillantes bought two hectares of land in Sevia, a nearby village, in the hopes of further increasing productivity. Kadokalih is even looking to build a parboiling center, which would create jobs in the area and provide greater income benefits to women in Africa and those in the cooperative.

Rice produced with the parboiling equipment is also more nutritious than what the women previously produced, providing surrounding communities that buy the rice with added health benefits.

The West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program

The WAAPP was created in 2008 with the mission of increasing food security in West Africa through gains in food productivity and availability. In 2019 alone, the WAAPP increased rice, fruit and tuber production by 150%, helping make smallholder farms profitable. The WAAPP initiative has impacted more than 227,000 Togolese women as of January 2020 through its cooperative involvements.

The agricultural sector represents about 35% of West African nations’ combined GDP and employs 60% of the active labor force. Despite its integral role in the region, the agricultural sector in West Africa struggles with some of the lowest crop yields in the world. Lagging agricultural productivity stems from low-quality seeds and fertilizer, as well as a general lack of information about and access to agricultural technologies and best practices. The market itself suffers from underdeveloped farmer-market linkages and globally high transportation costs.

Overall, Africa is ripe with untapped natural resources. The continent uses only about 10 million of some 130 million hectares suitable for rice production. The WAAPP aims to change that, and women in Africa are helping further that cause.

Reaching Out Beyond Togo

Togo is one of four countries where the WAAPP, assisted by World Bank funding, has given farmers parboiling technologies and training, increasing both labor productivity and rice quality. The other countries involved in the program are Benin, Guinea and Niger. The World Bank describes rice parboiling as a growth industry, meaning that it shows promise for future poverty alleviation and economic development efforts in West Africa. Like Togo, Benin has recently felt the effects of this promise.

After receiving training, rice parboiling and other business-related equipment from the WAAPP, cooperatives in Benin have seen similarly positive trends in productivity, with rice processing capacity up 400% in two years.

“In the past, we had to get at least four women to manually sort a 100-kilogram bag, which took all day,” Bertin Adéossi, coordinator of the Framework Program to Support Agricultural Diversification in Benin, told the World Bank. “By comparison, the sorting machine we have installed produces 1.4 metric tons per hour.”

Between 2017 and 2018, sales revenues in this cooperative rose from CFAF 33 million (about $60,000) to almost CFAF 80 million (almost $145,000). The significance of that change shows in the lives of these women in Africa, who have gained from the parboiling industry and the work the WAAPP has done.

Togo and Benin are just two examples of how these improvements in productivity, efficiency and quality in the rice parboiling industry are invaluable to long-term economic growth in West Africa. As this sector grows, so do the communities that support it. And, as the WAAPP’s project spreads, women in Africa gain more opportunities to work their way out of poverty, lifting whole nations with them in their pursuit of a better life.

– Olivia du Bois
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Guinea Fowl Farming Creates Thousands of Jobs in Ghana

guinea_fowl_farming
Favored by both roadside barbecue stands and upscale restaurants throughout Ghana, the nutritious and low-fat guinea fowl represents a lucrative business for smallholder farmers who want a low-maintenance livestock to raise.

The World Bank’s West Africa Agricultural Productivity Program (WAAPP) is helping guinea fowl farmers in Northern Ghana scale up operations. Its initial investment in 80 farmers has benefited more than 50,000 people.

Guinea fowl farming could create thousands of jobs and earn export revenue.

In order to build a food system to feed every African, WAAPP works with researchers, farmers and others to promote the guinea fowl industry into an engine of job creation in rural Ghana.

During the past two years, WAAPP has helped 80 guinea fowl farmers in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions of Ghana scale up operations.

It has also revitalized the production of a homegrown vaccine to combat Newcastle disease, a virus that is deadly to poultry.

Since 2013, more than 38 million doses of the vaccine have been released to 137,400 farmers. Moreover, the vaccine is now being exported to other West African countries, including Niger and The Gambia.

Benefited by WAAPP, participants could receive a starter kit that includes financial support, an incubator, generator, 500 eggs, dewormer, feed and vaccines.

In addition, agricultural trainers visit those farmers regularly to teach them how to care for birds so as to reduce mortality.

Moreover, the production rate of guinea fowl has been increased by more than five times due to applying incubators and techniques, such as housing birds to protect them from hawks.

With the help from WAAPP, farmers have raised their production from less than 100 birds per year to production of between 600 and 800 birds per quarter.

“Before WAAPP gave us technologies and techniques to protect our birds from predators and disease, I couldn’t make more than 100 birds a year. Now our losses are very few— this year alone we had over 800 birds so I hired people to help me,” said Gideon Anaba, a guinea fowl farmer in Boku, Ghana.

“Thanks to income from this business, I paid my children’s university bills without going in for a loan.”

Adamu Mubarik, a 34-year-old guinea fowl farmer from Garu Tempane, received a starter kit from WAAPP in 2013 and now produces up to 3,200 birds a year. He is also willing to help others on the path to success.

He incubates eggs for other farmers for as low as 20 pesewas, or US $0.05 cents, per egg and gives young people advice on how to get started as a guinea fowl farmer.

He was once a university graduate who faced the difficulty of finding a job and had no choice but to rely on his uncle in Accra for support. But because of WAAPP assistance, he’s an entrepreneur who can afford his sister’s tuition fee as well as his family.

Moreover, he can expand his business to create jobs and serve the needs of his district.

“The Bank is supporting Ghana’s guinea fowl farming because it’s ripe for expansion—it has the potential to create thousands of jobs, earn revenue by selling to the local and international market and help alleviate poverty,” said Henry Kerali, World Bank Country Director, Ghana.

– Shengyu Wang

Sources: World Bank, Mother Earth News
Photo: Yakubu Family Ghana