Growing Diversity – West Africa

TITLE OF EXPERIENCE: Promotion of local technologies for the treatment of crops, “niébé and cotton”

AUTHOR: IFEDUN - Solidarity Association (AIS)

COUNTRY AND REGION: Dassa - Zoumé

ECOLOGICAL ZONE: Savannah

ABSTRACT

In the Dassa-Zoumé region, cotton is one of the main crops. The farmers in the mountain districts use insecticides designed for cotton on other plants, especially subsistence food crops such as “niébé” and maize. Human and animal food poisoning is frequent. The IFEDUN -Solidarity Association (AIS) currently includes about thirty women's groups from Banté and Dassa and ensures the dissemination of information about the environment as well as information, education and communication on a rural radio station - Radio Ilèma.

According to older, experienced people, harvest protection requires seeds, leaves and neem oil as well as néré shells. To preserve seeds, neem, small peppers, orange zest and lemon powder are often used. Unfortunately, the use of modern methods has altered local community customs for the worse.

People have mostly abandoned the methods and practices of local technologies for imported practices; traditional knowledge is threatened. Experiences of endogenous technology are forgotten because of the resources from the cotton industry, supported by the state, which generates the inputs. Only a determined national political resolve will end these constraints to allow traditional knowledge to be valued.

CONTACT:

Association IFEDUN – Solidarité (AIS) – BP 17 – Dassa – Zoumé – BENIN, Tel. 229 53 01 79