Although
it’s always hot in Burkina, the especially high temperatures of March and April
are designated the “hot season.” How hot, you ask? It’s so hot that my meals are salted with my own
sweat. It’s so hot that most volunteers
get some form of heat rash. Yeah, that’s
a thing, and it’s unpleasant to say the least.
It’s so hot that the nighttime low is in the mid 80’s and the low in my
hut is the mid 90’s. It’s so hot that I
drink two liters of Oral Rehydration Salt (ORS) solution every day in addition
to my daily 5L water intake. Staying hydrated is a full time job. It’s so hot that birds landing on my tin roof
get roasted to a golden brown, but only if I can get them down within a minute
(kidding…they don’t land on my roof because they would get BURNT TO A CRISP). IT’S SO HOT THAT EVEN BURKINABE ARE
PERSPIRING!!
But
it just so happens that hot season is also mango season. Mango season is an important time for my
village economically. There are over 100
mango trees in my village alone, and plenty more “en brousse,” or the generally
uninhabited areas off the beaten path.
Even before the mangos are ripe, Women use long poles with hooks on the
end to pull mangos down from trees. Their kids climb the trees to assist. Other kids are responsible for cushioning the
fall of the mangos with any available piece of material as they plunge to the
ground. Many women of the village sell
mangos to cars and bush taxis on the highway that stop at the toll booth. That’s around 30 women selling mangos. Economic specialization isn’t a well
understood concept among Burkinabe.
Frankly I’m just surprised the women don’t get into fights over who is
selling to which car. Often it’s just a
mad foot race to the car/bus window; first to get in the customer’s face and yell
“MANGORO” (Jula for mango) makes the sell.
The
chief of my village is also the president of a regional association of mango
producers, called L’Union Provincial des Produeteurs de Fruits et Legumes de la
Comoe (UPPFL-CO). That translates to
Provincial Union of Fruit and Vegetable Producers of the Comoe (my
province). Don’t let the name of the
organization mislead you, though; they only deal with mangos. While I’m unclear on the financial specifics
of the union, people in the region can pay $20 to participate and they make
money on the mangos produced by trees on their property (or that they collect
en brousse).
There’s
even a dried mango factory in my village run by the UPPFL-CO, which typically
starts operating at the end of April and runs through May. When I say factory I’m referring the practice
of having a bunch of people in the same place producing a product more than the
actual structure, which resembles all of the other buildings in village. Hundreds of kilograms of mangos are peeled,
sliced, and dried in gas powered ovens.
Mangos are highly acidic and ovens are hot, so the factory gets pretty
hellish for the women who work there, but at least they have (extremely
temporary) jobs. Most of the dried
mangos are exported to Europe, but some are sold in Burkina as well. The union presumably does well, as the chief
of my village has a Toyota Tacoma that he frequently drives into Banfora, my
regional capital. Most of the people in
my village however, don’t have enough mango trees on their property (or the
means to transport large quantities of mangos from the bush) to make it worth
joining the union. As so often results
in the developing world, the financial success of the UPPFL-CO is enjoyed by a
privileged few, rather than the poor majority.
But
enough about mangos, let’s look at the economy of Burkina Faso as a whole. More than 90% of economic production in Burkina
is agricultural. And almost all of the
agricultural goods produced in Burkina are consumed domestically due to the
small scale of production and the expense of exportation. This includes vegetables such as tomatoes,
garlic, onions, green beans, eggplant, and cucumbers. It also includes fruit such as mangos, papayas,
and watermelon: each with their respective two month season. The list wouldn’t be complete without the
starches that form the lion’s share of any Burkina diet: corn, millet, potates
(basically sweet potatoes) and ingyam (also sweet, potato-like starch).
One
of the exceptions to this “domestic consumption” rule of agriculture is
sugar. I live directly across the
highway from the largest (and only) expanse of commercial sugar cane production
in Burkina. The company, SN-SOSUCO, was
created by government in the 60’s to collectivize sugar production in the
region. It was state owned until 1998, when
part of it was sold to a European company, F.C. Shaffer. Although it currently claims to be a
“public-private partnership,” the “public” partners are most likely high
ranking government officials who pocket their share of the profits. Privatization brought European management expertise
and technology, but continued the system of exploitation and corruption that
was already in place when SOSUCO was state owned.
The
company claims to have a workforce of over 3,000, including 800 permanent
staff, 400 seasonal workers and more than 1,800 day workers, making it Burkina
Faso’s “largest private employer.” As
some of the men in my village who work for SOSUCO explained, “day worker” is a
generous description of a job that is about as grueling, temporary, and low
paying as jobs can get. In a classic
Burkinabe exaggeration, my friend in village also told me that none of the
sugar produced in the fields is consumed in Burkina Faso, but that’s clearly
not true because the sugar rectangles (it would be misleading to call them
cubes) that are used at every coffee kiosk in every village of Burkina come in
a box with the SOSUCO logo on it.
It
is fair to say, however, that SOSUCO enjoys a monopoly on sugar production in
Burkina and a monopoly on the temporary labor market in my region, allowing it
to fix prices and pay day-to-day workers next to nothing. While the company claims to actively promote the economic development of the region, it
currently supports no development projects in the region that I know
about. The factory did bring electricity
from Cote d’Ivoire (not even all electricity is produced in Burkina) to the
village adjacent to mine where its main factory is located, but it managed to
bypass all of the villages on the 15km of road between the factory and Banfora. When the company was state owned it also built
a system of water pipes running through the fields and the villages adjacent to
them, but these had to be built anyway to support large scale irrigation.
Cotton
is another exception to the “domestic consumption” rule of agriculture. But although
it is produced by independent Burkinabe farmers, all of the cotton is purchased
by another “public-private partnership,” SOFITEX. The company has a monopoly on cotton
purchasing, allowing it to dictate the prices it pays Burkinabe farmers. Although the company claims to promote the “social
welfare” of the general population, a visit to any cotton producing village
proves otherwise. It’s also substantial
to note that even SOFITEX exports raw cotton to be processed elsewhere. None of the fabric or clothes available here
are made from Burkinabe cotton. In
short, Burkina Faso doesn’t have the industrial capacity to process cotton.
There’s
livestock in Burkina Faso, too, but you won’t be eating a T-bone steak from a
grass-fed cow in Burkina anytime soon. Even if we ignore the fact that cows
here eat mostly dead plants and weeds instead of grass, Burkina Faso has little
to no capacity to process meat on an industrial scale for exportation. Your average butcher killed the cow on market
day with his rusty machete, carried it to the market in a donkey cart, cut it
up on a dirty table with the same rusty machete, and hung the pieces up to
display in a hot, fly infested section of the outdoor market that half the
vegetarians in the world cite as the reason they don’t eat meat. A lot of villagers have animals in Burkina,
but livestock here are more of a savings mechanism than a profitable
investment.
Gold
is another export of Burkina, but it’s mined by……you guessed it…..foreign
companies! While there are many government officials that benefit from the fees
that companies pay to mine here, the average Burkinabe sees no economic
benefits from this industry. In fact, the Burkinabe that are “lucky” enough to
get a job in the mines face extremely dangerous working conditions for little
to no pay.
One
of the few actual “industries” in Burkina is beer production. It’s brewed domestically and consumed
domestically. All of the beer in Burkina
is produced by the same company, which mass produces the two cheapest beers,
Brakina and Sobbra, but is also contracted to produce foreign beers like
Guinness and Pelforth. The poor quality
of the Brakina and Sobbra make it extremely unlikely that anyone outside of
Burkina will ever enjoy the happiness of a lukewarm Brakina on a hot day.
So
if Burkina doesn’t produce most of the manufactured goods sold here, who
does? The answer is A LOT of companies
in A LOT of other countries. The “pagne”
(colorful African fabric) that villagers wear is imported from Nigeria. Mustard is imported from France. Tissues are imported from Cote d’Ivoire.
Cigarettes are imported from Ghana.
Spaghetti is imported from Turkey.
Tomato paste is imported from Italy.
Canned corn is produced in China for a French company based in
Singapore. Powdered milk is produced in
Ghana. The margarine that suspiciously
doesn’t melt in 110 degree heat, leading many volunteers to speculate that it
is more plastic than butter, is produced in Ghana. Any item in Burkina that mildly resembles
an item you would buy at a grocery store in America was imported.
But
the best example of the “import saturation” phenomenon in Burkina is rice. Rice is a staple of the Burkinabe diet,
featuring prominently in at least half of all dishes that can be considered
“Burkinabe cuisine.” Yet most of the
rice consumed in Burkina is imported from Thailand. Due to climate, rainfall, farming techniques,
government subsidies, and a variety of other reasons, it costs less to mass
produce rice in Thailand than it does in Burkina. So Burkina imports millions of kilograms of
rice every year, while domestic rice production has virtually disappeared.
As
you might have guessed, all luxury goods are imported as well. The motorcycles that Burkinabe own are
produced by Japanese companies, such as Yamaha, or Chinese companies, such as
AP Sonic. Most of the cars that aid
organizations (including Peace Corps) use are Toyotas, while the cars that
wealthy Burkinabe own are a mix of foreign imports (a lot of Mercedes). All of the medicine distributed at the
village health clinic is produced in India or China.
Burkina
Faso is an interesting case study of economic globalization’s effects on underdeveloped
countries. Due to international trade,
Burkinabe have access to goods that can’t be produced here (tissues,
motorcycles, cigarettes, etc.). However,
Burkina also hasn’t developed the industrial capacity to produce anything short
of sugar and dried mangos. Development economists
that support trade liberalization would argue that Burkina shouldn’t be
producing goods that it doesn’t have a comparative advantage in producing,
basically economics jargon for products that cost less to produce in Burkina
than elsewhere. For example, Burkina
imports rice from Thailand because Thailand enjoys a comparative advantage in
producing rice. But the goods that
Burkina has never and doesn’t currently enjoy a unique comparative advantage in
producing much of anything.
A
large number of development economists also believe that Foreign Direct
Investment (FDI) is the driving factor of development, claiming underdeveloped
countries are not making themselves attractive enough for foreign
investment. Some foreign companies have
invested in Burkina, but most those companies have invested in the capacity to
extract raw material for the lowest cost and export it elsewhere for processing
(where most of the profits are made).
Burkina doesn’t have a skilled workforce to offer. The roads are decent here (by African
standards), but without a major river or ocean port, it’s very hard to get goods to regional, much
less international, markets. The bottom line is that Burkina Faso has very
little potential for economic growth.
There will always be a global demand for cotton, sugar, and gold, but a
vast majority of Burkinabe don’t benefit from these industries in any
meaningful way.
It
is too often assumed that development will come with international trade and
foreign investment, which can bring jobs and technology, but can also establish
extractive markets that do very little to develop domestic national economies. Sustainable economic development must
ultimately come from within. It’s
difficult to start a business in Burkina, but it’s possible. Savings and Credit associations that exist in
many villages can provide small loans to members who contribute a small fee
each week. Microfinance organizations can
offer to services and loans to people who are willing to work to pay them back. If host country nationals don’t learn to use
the resources at their disposal to increase their income, there will never be a
substantial middle class between the absurdly rich and extremely poor.* Equally as important, Burkinabe need to learn
to help other Burkinabe. Those with the
power to make changes typically have a vested interest in maintaining the
status quo, but society as a whole will never progress if the resources aren’t
available for the poor to help themselves.
*
Currently the “middle class” of Burkina (those living above $1.25 a day, the
line of extreme poverty established by the World Bank) largely consists of low
level government employees (teachers, nurses, etc.), a majority of which are
paid out of foreign aid budgets instead of actual government revenue.
It’s
difficult, but not impossible, to be a successful entrepreneur in Burkina, as
demonstrated by my friend in village, Siaka.
Siaka is what, in Peace Corps jargon, we call a “positive deviant.” He’s a Burkinabe who exhibits behavior that
is atypically positive, in this case an entrepreneurial drive and work ethic
that is more American than Burkinabe.
After dropping out of high school, he taught himself passable English
and started a business in my village producing “atieke,” a local delicacy that
is similar to kous kous. He has
successfully applied for, received, and paid back 3 loans from a microfinance
organization called Zidisha. Zidisha is
one of many microfinance organizations that connect entrepreneurs in the
developing world with “investors” in the developed world. I put the word “investors” in quotations
because most of these entrepreneurs are asking for less than $1,000 and people
can specify their contribution. In other
words, you don’t have to manage a hedge fund to help these people out. The loans have a low interest rate and a specified
deadline by which they need to be paid back.
And studies have shown that over 90% of microfinance loans are actually
paid back.
To
give you an idea of what Zidisha looks like, I’ve posted the link to their
website below.
https://www.zidisha.org/fr/
