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Agricultural cooperatives let farmers pool their resources so they can get better prices for their produce and access more markets, including international ones.
In Senegal, nearly one-third of mango and onion producers belong to one of 29 new or modernized cooperatives established by the PACAO programme. These cooperatives have forged new links among farmers, businesses that process foods, and exporters who can sell those goods abroad.
Improving these value chains boosts food security, stimulate economic growth, and create sustainable jobs.
‘Before forming our cooperative, we each worked on our own, with no coordination,’ said Cheikh Mbacké Mboup. He’s an agricultural engineer by training with 42 years of experience in farming. ‘This prevented us from pooling our resources and negotiating better prices. We were scattered, and that limited our ability to produce and sell effectively.’
He’s currently serving as the chairman of the Fruit, Vegetable, and Livestock Producers’ Cooperative, known by its French acronym (COOPROFEL). Based about 70 kilometres from the capital Dakar, in Keur Mbir Ndao, the cooperative now has 635 members.
Created in 2007, COOPROFEL overhauled its organizational structure and operations in 2021, with support from the International Trade Centre (ITC) though the Programme of Assitance for Competitiveness in West Africa – Senegal Component (PACAO-Senegal).
It’s one of 29 cooperatives that worked with the programme, bringing together nearly 70,000 producer-members who work with mangoes and onions. These cooperatives alone account for 31% of national onion production and 29% of mango production.
COOPROFEL, which operates in the mango and onion value chains, faced many challenges before teaming up with PACAO-Senegal.
Better organization in value chains
With the programme’s support, COOPROFEL members received training on good agricultural practices, marketing, leadership, communication, organizational management, and financial management. These trainings were complemented by the development of a financial and accounting procedures manual, allowing for better traceability of operations.
Organization is essential to the competitiveness of value chains and improves producers’ access to markets and inputs. Marianne Diattara has been a producer for over 25 years, and is now deputy general treasurer of COOPROFEL.
‘Now, the market is much more accessible. Recently, we took part in major trade fairs organized in Dakar,’ she said.
‘Today, our mangoes are exported to countries like Belgium, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Morocco. As for onions, the cooperative has helped us better organize our production and sell at higher prices. We now have more stable incomes,’ said Amadou Thiam, Vice President of COOPROFEL.
A business partner of COOPROFEL, Mamadou Ndiaye, Sales Manager at TropicaSem, confirms this success. ‘We’ve been working with COOPROFEL since 2023. Last year, we sold them over 78 tons of seeds. The cooperative is one of our best clients.”
The cooperatives can steer their produces through the value chain so the mangoes and onions can be turned into new products. Those processed goods fetch higher prices than the fresh fruit, creating jobs and growing incomes.
Mangoes are sold fresh but also as purée, jam, smoothies, flour, vinegar, and more. Processed onion products are also found in supermarket shelves across Senegal and in weekly markets.
These products go through several stages: the farmer who harvests them, the cooperative that aggregates and sells them, the factory that processes them, and the distributor who places them on shelves or exports them. By organizing agricultural cooperatives, PACAO-Senegal strengthens a vital link in this chain and facilitates market access for cooperative members.
But the value chain is not just about products. It’s also about people, like Cheikh Mbacké Mboup, Marianne Diattara and Amadou Thiam. It’s about the farmers that PACAO-Sénégal has supported, whose incomes have risen thanks to better organization. It’s about their business partners – customers and suppliers – whose operations have expanded. And it’s about the consumer, who has access to quality local products.
By structuring value chains, PACAO-Sénégal creates a virtuous circle by promoting agricultural cooperative societies.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of International Trade Centre.