I was able to visit a production farmer (production farmer: someone who is trying to make a living off the land) in Burkina Faso this past summer. The man we visited with was someone who has received a plow from Grain of Hope through donors. It was personally amazing to meet someone we have helped and to see first hand how they have implemented the training and equipping they have received.
This man was so proud to show me and the team I had with me his field. It was kinda like when my 3 year old son comes homes and wants me to see his newest drawing. This man was beaming with pride. I could not hold back the tears as we walked through his field. There are really no words to describe the overload of joy one feels in these types of moments.
After we toured his land and saw his crop we sat and talked for a while. I wanted to ask some questions about how everything was going. One question I always ask is how is it different now, what has changed since he had received the training and equipping?
He proceeded to tell us that before the plow he used a hand held tool to plant his fields and was able to produce 30 bags of food using this method. That didn’t seem like a lot to me so I asked him how many bags does he need to feed his family for the entire year, his response was 40 – 40 bags this man needs to feed his family and he was only producing 30. I asked him “so what did you do for food because you where 10 bags short?” His look was response enough for me, it was a look of normal depravity. His verbal answer was, we just went hungry and ate one or two times a week. He then said but now, now that I have the plow we are always full. He told us that he can now produce at minimum 80 bags of food.
I was curious so I asked him what do you do with the 40 extra bags that you produce because you said you only need 40 to feed your family. He proceeded to tell us that he helps feed those in need in his village with some of his extra. He also set up a business in the market where he sells his product to make actually money for his family. He then uses that money to send all 4 of his children to school.
I don’t want you miss how important sending his children to school is here. First, there is no free education in Burkina. School cost on average $115 per student per year. Weigh that cost with the fact that most people in this area live on less than a $1.25 a day. Second, because of the cost of schooling hardly anyone is privileged enough to afford to attend school, especially in the villages away from the city were most of the population lives. Often times a whole family will try and pull resources together just to try and send one child to school. So for this man to be able to send all 4 of his children to school is a HUGE deal. Third, his children are the first people ever to attend school in the history of this man’s family. The education they will receive will enable them to make a good living, lifting them out of the cycle of poverty.
For a one time $400 investment from our organization for the plow, this farmer can now grow more food than his family needs to survive, help others in his village that are hungry, sell his product in the markets and send all 4 of his children to school. This is why sustainability is so important. Yeah, it might be easier and quicker just to hand someone a bag of food that cost $50 but, that bag will only last 6 weeks. The hard work of development, training and equipping can last a lifetime. Not only did we help change this man’s immediate situation we have helped produce a new direction for his family’s future for generations to come.
All of this for only a $400 plow. We’ve had an impact on many in Burkina Faso, but we’d love to help more. If you’d like to support our mission of creating sustainable solutions to poverty through training and equipping those in the villages of Burkina, please take a look at ways you can get involved below.