Abdoulaye Sawadogo is well on the way to conquering West Africa with his seeds. After a 13-year career as a worker, he was laid off in the 1980s, with just 300,000 FCFA as compensation.
Not knowing what to do with the money, he decided to go into farming, planting a hectare of banana plantations. On his first harvest, he earned 1,200,000 FCFA, 4 times his severance pay after 13 years. One season later, he was growing corn and the harvest brought in 750,000 FCFA. These encouraging results were enough to convince him that he had an agricultural vein at the end of which would be wealth. In 2002, the new farmer planted 65 ha, then sold his harvest of 279 tonnes for 65 million FCFA to a semi-state company that has been slow to pay him his money.
A year later, his hopes were drowned again by a torrential downpour of 265 mm, received in 24 hours and which ended up flooding his agricultural perimeter.
Drowned up to his neck, he continues to hold out hope and obtains a bank loan of 8 million FCFA to restart his business the following season.
On the strength of his experience, he set up his own business in 2008, opting for off-season seed production. A winning choice. Today, Nafaso is a major player in the production and marketing of improved seeds in West Africa.
Based in Bobo Dioulasso, Nafaso is active in rice, corn, sorghum and cowpea seeds. With its success, the company continues to grow, as evidenced by its new hangar and machinery. The company employs 40 permanent staff, 10 managers, nearly 1,500 seasonal workers and over 1,200 temporary staff. And Nafaso is thinking big.
" Our aim is to bring seeds closer to their users, i.e. small-scale producers "says Abdoulaye Sawadogo.
With over 50 stores and nearly 450 resellers, Nafaso, which produces 5,500 tonnes of seed per season, generates annual sales of 2.5 billion FCFA. Thanks to the support of CORAF, the company, which used to operate mainly in Burkina Faso, now sells its seeds throughout West Africa, from Burkina to Senegal, Nigeria and Guinea.
" Coraf helped Nafaso obtain pre-basic seeds from AfricaRice. Today, we produce certified seeds. "recalls Abdoulaye Sawadogo.
"Nafaso occupies a very good position in the sub-region, since we market everywhere, and that's thanks to CORAF, PPAAO and PSAO, who have made it possible for us to access the regional market.He recalls the Ebola initiative, during which Nafaso sold nearly 3 billion FCFA worth of seeds to countries hit by the epidemic, with the support of ECOWAS.