Burkina Faso

Association TON

(Interview by Kate Sebag, 2008)

Association TON is a cooperative of farmers with 2800 strong membership. Many of their farmers grow mangoes and a large part of the cooperative's income comes from harvesting, drying and selling these mangoes for export.

Sangare Ousmane has 2 hectares of mango trees. He has been a member of Association TON for 10 years and has one 3 year old child. When I met him in June 08 he talked about how how positive he was about mango drying. He said that "because of drying, selling mangoes works for him. Before it was only the ladies who bought for market and didn't buy much or pay well. They just rotted because there was no market. A few big traders would sometime comes by but again they did not buy much and did not pay much either. Drying triples the interest in mango for us because the farmers gain and the women gain. And then there is the social premium too which benefits the whole community."

The Fairtrade premium is paid over and above what is paid for the product, and its useage is voted on by the membership. In the last 2 years, it has been used for the construction of a creche, health centre, new classrooms, the provisioning of medicines, the purchase of mosquito nets and the purchase of a photocopier.

Drying the mango is primarily women's work, and it provides them with valuable paid income during the 5 month mango season from April through to August.

The women told me that the benefits of working at TON are that they and their families are able to eat well, to be educated and to get medicine. They also enjoy working all together. However, as elsewhere in the world, they were finding it really tough that the cost of basic food staples such as rice and maize has shot up this year, almost doubling from last year.

I asked if the war being over in neighbouring Ivory Coast had improved things for TON which is right near the Ivory Coast/Burkinabe border. But Madame Traore said "the war being finished means nothing. There has been no improvement and people are staying here because they lost things over there and they can gain a livelihood in Burkina."

The women went on to talk to me about how when the mango season is over, it's tougher to get an income but all the women do their best with a variety of petty trading. Madame Soma (2nd to left) sells chilled water at the market, Bali Alimatou (2nd to left kneeling) sells fresh mango and fresh milk from a calabash. Soulama Douefuba (1st to left kneeling) sells shoes at the market which are imported from Cote D'Ivoire. Madame Bado Marie is a hair dresser but she says it is difficult to earn money from this here because people are poor. It is better in Cote D'Ivoire. (5th to left standing) Madame Traore ( 4th to left standing) sells clothes in the market.

But as Madame Traore explains "it is better working at TON than selling as you never know if you are going to sell anything in the day no matter how hard you work but you know you will be paid for the work you do here."

TON run literacy classes for adults, and they also run an Islamic school for children. They also have a great theatre group who do educative plays about child trafficing, and about health and sex education.

I asked Madame Traore for a message to take back to people in England. This was it: "Buy our mangoes because they are good quality."

	Madame Traore and Kabore Salimata of Assocation TON

TON Dried Mangoes are Fairtrade (FLO) and Organic (Soil Association) certified.