Burkina DryMore: processing beyond the mango season

The challenge

Burkina Faso's dried mango factories stand idle for much of the year because the mango season is short. That limits jobs and income, and makes investment harder to repay. The project looked for crops that the same processors could dry and sell outside the mango season.

What we did

• Assessed six candidate crops against market demand and chose three: ginger, fonio and hibiscus.
• Supported processing trials, quality tests and talks with buyers.
• Designed and ran a Processor Academy on processing costs, technology choices and growth.
• Helped design and test new equipment for cleaning and washing fonio and ginger.

Results

• 2 export containers of fonio shipped to the Netherlands.
• 3 new value chains processed on existing mango equipment.
• 6 processors and aggregators took part in trials, technology testing and buyer contact.
• 474 smallholder farmers trained in Year 1 (350 men, 124 women).