Roadmaps for two vegetable gardens managed by two vegetable cooperatives
In February 2022, Louis AVe expert went to two villages near Djougou in Benin, a mission programmed in the framework of an agreement signed with a Belgian association, the ASBL Le Verso du Miroir. This association has set up two vegetable gardens of 2 ha in two villages 5 km apart. On each of them, a women's cooperative practices irrigated agroecological market gardening.
For each garden, the expert wrote a roadmap based on the diagnosis of each site. Their situation is very different, as one (Passari) has been in place since 2016 while the other (Nimane) has just started.
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| Nassirou, the person in charge, presents the 2021 financial statement at the AGM of the Passari cooperative | healthy vegetables in Passari's garden | a borehole + photovoltaic panels + a water tower + a pipe network = the basis of a water installation to irrigate a vegetable garden |
On the village of Passari, the vegetable garden is in place since 2016, the women's cooperative since 2018. Louis has been providing assistance to this vegetable garden since 2017. After difficult beginnings, over time, enormous progress has been made by the women's cooperative both in terms of mastering irrigated agroecological market gardening and managing the cooperative. On the technical level, all the fundamentals of agroecological market gardening are applied. On the economic level: since 2018, a succession of positive operating results have allowed us to distribute income to the people working on the site.
We are facing a site that has reached maturity and is cruising. The mission allowed us to identify all the positive aspects that need to be continued and some aspects that can still be improved. All of this was formulated in a roadmap for the coming years.
In the village of Nimane, the market gardening activity has just started since December 2021. As in Passari, a complete irrigation system is operational, allowing for the production of vegetables in the dry season (8 months out of 12 without a drop of rain), when demand for vegetables is high. The cooperative's constituent general assembly was held during the mission.
This is a site that is just starting out, but which has the advantage of benefiting from the experience of the Passari site, which avoids many mistakes. Moreover, as the sites are close to each other, the same person (with a degree in agriculture) is responsible for both sites, which also has many advantages. Based on the diagnosis of this site, the expert gave a roadmap for the first year of activity of this vegetable garden
Louis Jestin - AVe expert