It is mid of July in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), it is Ramadan, a spiritual time in a country where 60% of the population is Muslim. Everyone gets prepared for Eid Al-Fitir, the celebration of the end of Ramadan. It means lots of meat and slaughtering animals. I guess it is the best time to walk on the Ouagadougou livestock market, called Sougr-Nooma.
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| Entrance to the market "Marche du betail Sougr-Nooma" |
The first thing i was explained was about the very high feeding cost in Ouagadougou. Therefore, sellers want to sell quickly. The feed on the livestock on millet they prepare with water and grass that a seller sells just outside the market place.
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| Millet preparation |
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| The grass seller outside of the market place |
Being there with ILRI colleagues, you can't avoid to talk of breeds. But as an economist and gis analyst all these discussion sometimes sound quite chinese... So what i understood is that in Burkina you have 3 breeds of goats and i am afraid i did not follow the discussion about the sheeps.
One is coming from the North and East of the country and is a dwarf. It is very well suited for the harsh in conditions.
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| A baby dwarf goat |
Then there is a very huge breed that is more sensitive. But it is pretty productive and attractive as a it is sold by size.
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| The very big breed |
Then there is a third breed which i unfortunately did not follow the whole story.
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| My colleague and i, no geneticist, decided to call this one just "le barbu" (the bearded) |
Not that i was not listening, but i ended up having a good chat with a seller, and respectable old man. I was first a bit afraid to talk to him, he was obviously Muslim, and i was obviously an uncovered woman. But quickly i discovered the openness of the Islam in this country and had a good chat with him. I discovered that a baby dwarf goat goes for about 30 usd, a dwarf goat between 80 -100 usd, and the giant goats can go up to 400 usd. Now we understand why they all want to have the big breed. At the end of our discussion he wanted to know is there are Mosques in my country and if we could practice Islam. I told him that in my country there is freedom of religion and there were Mosques where he would be welcome to pray. I obviously felt ashamed of the fact that Switzerland has a law in the constitution the explicitly forbids minaret (a type of architecture that could be anyway limited by land use law, unless in industrial zone) and the general negative connotation of Islam in my country. He was so welcoming to me, i felt that he should feel welcome in my country too, so i did not tell much.
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| The white goats |
On the other side of the market I had a chat with a much younger seller who was selling the white goats. He explained to me that the value of a perfectly white goat can increase the price up to 40 usd, just because of the color during this particular week. Remember it is Ramadan, and you are supposed to make an sacred offering of the animal to God, and completely white is more sacred than one with black dots...
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| The value of this goat is lower, because of the black dots around its eyes |
When you walk out of the market you see the trucks with which the goats and sheep arrive into Ouagadougou. If the animal comes from the pastoralist zone, then it has passed in at least two markets: a collecting market (marche de collecte) and a regroupement market (marche de regroupement) where buyer and seller try to make profit, often at the cost of the pastoratlist who remains poor.
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| Trucks arriving from the regroupment markets |
The
program livestock and fish i am working on will look at this value chain and find way to improve the production of small ruminant for and by the poor in Burkina Faso. I hope that this walk through the market has convinced you that it is a fascinating task!
And a great thanks to my ILRI colleagues who made this visit possible!
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