• 2000 tonnes obtained on 500 hectares in 2006, and more…nothing
• A clearly demonstrated political will for the revival of production
• Research and researchers in high demand
Dwheat produced in Burkina Faso, in 2023. It’s a reality. But this is not the first time that the grass has seen a harvest in the country. For at least thirty years, researchers have been working on speculation. “It’s not from today. It remained on the back burner, but at INERA, we never stopped producing wheat to maintain the varieties selected and which are profitable in Burkina,” confides one of them. The last full-scale experiment dates back to the 2005/2006 season during which the country officially produced 2,000 tonnes of the cereal as part of a pilot project implemented over an area of 500 hectares in the Sourou valley. On March 20, 2006, for example, it was the Prime Minister at the time, Paramanga Ernest Yonli, who launched the wheat harvest in the Sourou valley in Niassan, in the department of Di. After this experiment, the lines will no longer move much. According to Dr Jacob Sanou, no one believed in the success of the production of this speculation in a Sahelian country like Burkina. The man, head of the corn-wheat-emerging plants section of INERA/Farako-Bâ, spent nearly 40 years working on wheat seed and kept the torch alive. With his colleagues, the work made it possible to identify the soils on which wheat can be grown and especially the varieties. Soils that can produce corn can also produce wheat. The only difference is that it must be produced in the dry season, because wheat needs a temperature between 22 and 27°. Among the varieties, two stand out: Kanz and Achtar. They have a cycle of 90 days for the first and 80 for the second, with a respective yield of 07 and 04 tonnes per hectare.
In the new agricultural benchmark, the “2023-2025 agropastoral and fisheries offensive”, adopted by the Council of Ministers on September 5, 2023, 1,500 ha are devoted to wheat production. But the political will was displayed well before, with the signing of an agreement, on March 17, between the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal and Fishery Resources and the Institute of the Environment and Agricultural Research (INERA ) relating to the production of wheat seeds. As part of this new partnership, INERA researchers are committed to making, initially, 10 tonnes of seeds available to the Ministry of Agriculture for the benefit of farmers. For the head of the department, Commander Ismaël Sombié, the challenge will be met. “Wheat cultivation is a mission that the President of the Transition, His Excellency Captain Ibrahim Traoré, wants to see come to fruition. To do this, we have made fifteen tonnes of wheat seeds available to producers. So we are going to do it at all costs,” he says. For the new dynamic of wheat production, the planting of 100 hectares of wheat in the Bagré growth pole was planned. But the availability of seed, calendar constraints, as well as some technical difficulties have limited the planting to approximately 80 hectares distributed as follows: 62 hectares of which irrigation is in progress, 5 hectares at the Development Training Institute rural (IFODER), to allow residents to combine theory and practice, and 7 hectares of the NGO SAPHE on its own site. 15 hectares have been reserved to produce seed.
The relaunch of cereal production aims to reduce imports which cover almost all of the country’s consumption needs. For the moment, the country which consumes around 315,000 tonnes of wheat per year is mainly supplied by France and Russia, which both account for almost 95% of shipments. The war between Russia and Ukraine (the two countries alone account for 30% of world production) has caused wheat prices to soar. In addition to the specter of supply disruption, soaring prices were already a reality. In a press release dated May 24, 2022, the Coordination of bakery umbrella organizations noted that “ the price of wheat flour increased from 350,000 FCFA to more than 525,000 FCFA, an increase of 175,000 FCFA per tonne (50% increase) ». o
Moumouni SIMPORE
