A walk through Ouagadougou's livestock market

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. 

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.

Millet preparation

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.

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.

The very big breed

Then there is a third breed which i unfortunately did not follow the whole story.

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.

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...

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.

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!

Multifunctional farms, in rich countries only?

Lately, I went to visit a poultry farm a bit off Nairobi, to get inspired for my and my friend's poultry project. It was an impressive poultry farm, that was producing improved local chicken, quails, Guinea fowl, parrots, ducks and many others. Next to the amazingly spacious cages fulls of birds, the farm has also an impressive breeding space, with huge incubators and cages to keep chicks warm. An impressive farm, optimizing poultry production.

Guinea fowl

Next to the meat and egg business, the farm sells chicks and fertilized eggs from all the birds they have. What i really learned from them, is that consistency is key to Kenyan market (i.e. being able to always supply). As they cannot consistently sell Guinea fowl meat, they prefer to not sell, but wait until they can reach consistency before entering market : a smart way to not loose the market before one has penetrated it.

A just born chicken, still in the incubator

But what impressed me most about Ben, the farmer/owner of the farm was his vision of a multifunctional farm, just like those amazing farm i was visiting in the Netherlands during my PhD. He is dreaming of a farm where every day school classes are coming to learn about farming. And he already host regularly hosts classes. He wants to show young people that farming is not a second choice in life, it can be a very smart and good business.

one of the several incubators

But he has even bigger dreams, he hopes to have a small conference center and a camping so that people from Nairobi can enjoy not only his good meat but also the tremendously nice landscape he is living in and he co-creates.

The tremendously nice landscape just some kilometer away from Nairobi

Ben reminded me a lot of Jan Huijgen, the farmer who took up the initiative to get some funding to fund my PhD : a man with the vision to reconnect cities to their food. And as i have just learned, this is not just a European vision, it is also emerging in Africa...

Jan Huijgen

 Wanna make your own intercontinental comparison? Find here Jan's blog

Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!

An inspiring talk to start this new week!

Let's walk the talk ! Bringing Kuroiler chicken to the Kenyan market

Recently I have reported from a new chicken breed, Kuroiler,  that can potentially boost the whole Kenyan poultry sector!

Not later as yesterday, KARI the agricultural extension service from Kenya, announced that they are overwhelmed with the demand for improved local chicken, also know as KARI kinyeji chicken. No order will be taken until February.

A friend and myself, have decided to walk the talk and have just invested in an incubator, and in two weeks from now we will be able to supply the market with Kuroiler chicks, the improved local chicken from Uganda, which we believe has even better features than the KARI breed. We hope to reach consistency of supply within the next two months, implying that we will be able to provide the market with about 1000 chicks weekly.

So check out new blog/website and help us to spread the word!

Making geo-information available for smallholders through business

Yesterday, I was invited to Safari park Hotel for a match making event on how to use Geo-information, mainly from satellite images for business purpose in Africa and reach out to the farmers. The meeting brought together NGOs, insurances, banks, farmers' organization, mobile payment companies or research institutions. It was organized by Dutch space office and agri-pro focus.

The meeting will followed by a call for implementing projects in selected countries that will allow to link-up the last mile, i.e. bring the Geo-information to the smallholders in the form of a business idea.

The call will contain some hard core criteria, such as having a Dutch partner, having private sector partners (i.e. having a business model) or using satellite images. However, there are a bunch of other outcome criterias, such as how many smallholders need to reach out is yet unclear. A dialogue between donor and partners has started to come up with smart indicators, and hopefully will be flexible and part of a negotiation.You can find more information about the up-coming call here.

ILRI (International Livestock Research Institute) was prominent guest, I was proud to represent and to present in the plenary session. We have been widely recognized for our work on the index based livestock insurances (IBLI).



The insurance uses satellite images to derive NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) and livestock mortality data to create an index. When the index indicates a drought, payments are done to pastoralists regardless the livestock has died or not.

First informal discussion took place with some of the partners to enhance the efficiency and the reach out of the insurance. There is definitely scope to follow-up.

The fridge revolution : or how the fridge is changing the game in value chains

This week end, it was Madaraka day, the day commemorates the day that Kenya attained internal self-rule in 1963, preceding full independence from the United Kingdom. The whole week end was full of opposition rallies and pro-government event in Nairobi. The great occasion stay in a safe area and read. The latest version of the economist has a very good article about the fridge. I was expecting an article showing how life of poor people can change with a fridge. But the article went much further, showing how the whole value chains are changing with the up-coming of fridge. It will not only make food safer, and allow people to get cheaper food, but it will also lead to a completely new food demand.

(Taken from the Economist)

I am working for the value chain program of the CGIAR, we hope to increase livestock and fish products for and by the poor, for example the dairy sector. So somehow we expect the poor to lift themselves out of poverty thanks improved diets and through the sale of livestock products, i.e. the might reach the level where they can afford a fridge. If they do, it might have a deep impact on the value chain we try to improve. Are we running the risk that our work become out-dated or not fitting the context anymore when the poor get richer? or is it just part of a logical pathway to improved chains? I guess these are questions I will keep asking myself continuing my work.

This week end, i understood : the real revolution is not coming from the opposition party, it is it much more silent, it is the upcoming of the fridge!

why traceability can feed the world

Today, i came across an interesting TED talk, showing the traceability in the fish chain is the crucial entry point, in order to produce sufficient fish protein for the world. Jackie Savitz claims that if fisheries were managed correctly across the world (i.e fishermen are accountable and quotas implemented), more caught fish could be produced and feed more people. This can only be reached with traceability She also shows that caught fish is the animal protein that uses least water... watch it yourself :


So far so well, but in the livestock and fish research program, there is the implicit assumption there will not be sufficient caught fishes, and digs deeper into fish farms. Probably the combination of well managed caught fishes and farmed fishes will be contributing to more animal protein for the poor...

Does the new green revolution need GMOs?

A clear yes can be found in the latest economist on the new green revolution. A pretty interesting article based on IRRI information. It contains a very interesting pro-GMO discourse, to which i can to some extend agree up on :  the new green revolution will not be a silver bullet, but it will be a mosaic of context specific solutions. It is true that GMOs could be an answer to some specific contexts, such as marginal areas, for which it makes sense today to do some research to develop these context specific solution. However, concluding from this very true statement that one should introduce the golden rice, a rice enhanced by vitamin A in the Philippines, does not appear logical to me. Indeed, there are today only very few people who lack in vitamin A (unlike some decades ago). The context definition is just outdated. See my post about his issue.

Where i really started laughing is when i read the second article on the new green revolution, that shows that most of the productivity gain in Asia has to do with rental markets of machinery. Indeed, it is economically interesting if you can rent machinery, i.e. you don't need capital, yet you gain a lot of time to do other economic activities as you do not have all this labor requiring work on your farm anymore .
So i am wondering, why don't we first try to set the renting markets right and then check if in the new context there is really a need for GMOs before introducing them? 

The magic chicken or how Kuroilers are about to boost the Kenyan poultry sector

(please check Jolly Poultry if you are interested in getting your own Kuroilers) 
Chicken farming has always been an interesting option for smallholders in Africa to raise some cash and contribute to increase availability of proteins in relatively poor diets. Indeed raising chicken does not take much resources as they can be fed on agricultural waste and therefore barriers to entry are low. Smallholders usually grow endogenous breeds that are very well adapted to local conditions and are resistant to diseases, but productivity is very low. However, locals, both in Kenya and Ethiopia are ready to pay more for local chicken meat, at it seems to taste much better than commercial chicken. (Honestly, the only time i ate endogenous chicken, it was so hard that i almost could not finish it. In Swiss German we call this a "gum eagle" but somehow consumers here prefer it.)

Over the last years, intensive poultry farming has increasingly been taking over the African market. Commercial farming uses improved breeds, namely broilers for meat and layers for the eggs. These improved breeds are very productive. Maturity of a broiler is reached at 5 months and can weigh double than an fully grown endogenous chicken that takes up to 10 months to reach maturity. Also commercial layers can reach up to 300 eggs a year compared with 50 for endogenous chicken. However, these improved breeds are often not an option for smallholders. They need relatively expensive feed, they cannot be fed just on leftovers. They also are very sensitive to illnesses and therefore need expensive medication and vet. Also, they do not match the dual needs (i.e. a chicken for meat and eggs) of smallholders. 

Commercial farming in Kenya (taken from here)

To address the need of smallholders, an improved endogenous chicken, referred to as Kuroiler, has been developed in India, and has recently been introduced at large scale in Uganda. It has the benefits of a endogenous chicken, i.e. illness resistance, ease of feed through agricultural waste, and is dual purpose.  Yet Kuroilers have a much bigger productivity than endogenous chicken, namely give 150 eggs year and can reach 3.5 kg (compared to 2.5 kg of an endogenous chicken) in 6 months (compared to 10 month with endogenous chicken). The only thing i don't know is about the taste. Will it have this funny consistency that Kenyans love so much?

3 weeks Kuroiler chicks

It sounds like a pretty magic chicken that might save Africa :-)! The only turn down of this breed is that it needs vaccines and devorming, but both of them are quite affordable. Also it is smart to feed them on high proteins, i.e. on special chicken feed during the first 3 weeks.

Counting the new arrival of 1 day kuroiler chicks from Uganda

Now you are probably wondering how to get Ugandan chicken in Kenya? My friend went to Uganda to get her starting stock and she will be hatching them herself in the up-coming months. Chicks are sold at 3 weeks. Contact me or her (via the form below) to know when the next batch is ready and to make a reservation so that you can get yours soon!




foxyform
or check this website

Lake Baringo : a look on an fish chain

For Easter I discovered lake Baringo and Bogoria, North of Nairobi and the one of the probably pretty underdeveloped fish chains of Kenya.



Lake Baringo is pretty touristic also thanks to its beautiful natural, however due to heavy rain the lake had more water and some of the nice logdes are now standing underwater.

When we stepped into the boat, there were plenty of fish fingerling, and fishermen brought in plenty of quite big mud and cat fish. It seems to be a very healthy lake, and overfishing does not seem a problem.

children fishing

Fisherman, fish on small boats made of very light wood, they look pretty like the ones you can see on Tana lake in Ethiopia.

Then when the fish is brought to land, if is first cut and sun dried for a bit, then it is fried and smoked.

the cut fish : sun drying

smoking the fish

The processing of the fish is mainly a women's work. Maybe that's also why this chain is pretty underdeveloped. Fish leaves the place dried or fried and reaches Nakuru the nearest town but not Nairobi. I am personally not fond of this smoked fried fish, but my Kenyan friends really love it. The processing allows to transport fish without a cold chain, and therefore the fish could reach Nairobi though, the place is 6 hours away. Clearly, campi ya samaki (fish camp) is a place, where if some thoughts are put in, markets could be unlocked to benefit women, who today don't make the money their high value product would be worth...