Women’s coop in rural Senegal sees fonio profits soar

USAID eyes expanded market for nutritional, resilient staple food

Senegalese are noted for serving up sumptuous fish and meat sauces on a bed of rice or millet, but a third staple seems poised to expand its modest market. Just ask Aya Ndiaye, 57, the president of “Koba Club” in Kedougou, the poorest administrative district of Senegal. Koba Club, a business run by 20 women, was set up 20 years ago to, among other things, produce and sell tie-dyed cloth. Koba Club has always sold fonio to a Senegalese connoisseur market, but until recently this market has been limited.

Fonio (Digitaira exilis) is said to be Africa’s oldest cereal crop. It is considered by the Dogon people of Mali to be the “seed of the universe.” When cooked it has roughly the consistency of couscous that is typically served with a peanut sauce or chicken stew. It is rich in amino acids deficient in other cereals, easy to digest and low in natural sugars, making it an ideal food for the sick or diabetic. In addition, it is easy to grow and is well adapted to poor soils found in the region. Historically, fonio is largely cultivated and processed by women.

Because of fonio’s small seed size, processing is extremely time consuming. It can take up to three hours, and 15 liters of water, to pound, winnow, and wash two kilograms of fonio. This imposes limits on the quantity of fonio that can be processed. Aya noted that the major barrier to developing her fonio business was the lack of “improved processing equipment to reduce labor costs and the need to reach new markets.”

“Wula Nafaa,” a USAID-funded program and partner with the Senegalese Ministry of Environment, has targeted the fonio market chain, and has been working with Koba Club to help achieve these two goals. “Wula Nafaa” helps Koba Club obtain fonio processing machines and remodel its workshops in order to increase processing efficiency and improve hygiene and quality of the product.

In addition, Wula Nafaa has worked to stimulate national demand of fonio through a series of product demonstrations in various hospitals and the university in Dakar, as well as developing informal partnerships with various agro-industrial enterprises involved in marketing fonio.

As a result of market and production developments in 2004, Koba Club has increased fonio revenues by 656%, and has earned the runner-up spot in the President’s Women’s Enterprise prize. This has had an impact on employees, and Aya noted that Diaba Diallo, a shareholder and employee, used her profits from the fonio to “buy a bicycle so that her daughter Mahamba could attend high school.” She also noted that shareholders “no longer need to contribute to a communal shareholder health fund, but can now finance their own health costs directly.” Fatou Ly, for example, used her profits to bring her son three hours from Kedougou to Tambacounda to treat a broken arm.

Looking to the future, Koba Club has already financed 10 fonio producer groups and signed two contracts with two producer networks for nine metric tons of fonio for 2004/2005. According to Aya, “Now everyone is starting to become interested in fonio.”