A harvest that fails to feed its grower
In Tougan, the verdict is bitter. Behind the rhetoric of sovereignty, industrialisation and domestic output, agricultural producers say they remain alone in confronting a far less flattering reality: selling their crops at a loss, repaying credits, and sometimes weighing a crossing of the border simply to survive.
“Last year, maize delivered. They capped the price, and the producers earned nothing. This year, others will cross the border because of the credits,” reports a testimony from Tougan. The predicament is captured in a single striking line: “The producer weeps when the harvest is good, and weeps when the harvest is bad.”
This contradiction raises a fundamental question: what has become of the priority supposedly granted to those who feed the nation?
A narrative of factories and military equipment
Since coming to power, Ibrahim Traoré has consistently emphasised local production, economic sovereignty and Burkina Faso’s capacity to manufacture certain equipment itself. Announcements concerning industrial units, particularly those serving the needs of the army, occupy a prominent place in that communication.
Yet an economy cannot be reduced to its factories or its military hardware.
While new industrial capacities are presented as symbols of sovereignty, farmers remain confronted with far more immediate problems: insufficient purchase prices, indebtedness, uncertain outlets and low profitability from their crops.
Producing more only makes sense if the producer can also live from his work.
The Tougan problem goes far beyond maize
The difficulty in Tougan therefore exceeds the simple case of maize. It raises the question of agricultural investment. Which entrepreneur will durably accept to invest in a sector where a good harvest can drive prices down to the point of ruining the producer, while a poor harvest exposes him directly to debt?
This is precisely where one of the great blind spots of the sovereignty narrative lies: a nation does not become economically independent solely because it manufactures its own weapons. It must also be capable of securing the incomes of those who produce its food.
The paradox is brutal. Burkina wants to produce its equipment locally, yet some agricultural producers still seem to be searching for ways to sell their own output without losing their investment.
Fields, granaries and rural families left in the shadows
By persistently spotlighting images of factories, machines and military equipment, the authorities risk leaving another reality in the shadows: that of fields, granaries, credits and rural families awaiting concrete solutions.
Sovereignty is not measured only by what a state can manufacture for its army. It is also measured by its capacity to protect the person who, every morning, puts a seed in the ground to feed the nation.
In Tougan, the question is therefore not how many factories Burkina can inaugurate. The question is simpler, and probably more urgent: how much longer can the producer work without earning a living?
