In Tougan, Burkina Faso’s maize growers sell at a loss as credits push some toward the border
In Tougan, the verdict is blunt. Behind the rhetoric of sovereignty, industrialisation and domestic production, agricultural producers say they continue to face a far less flattering reality on their own: selling their harvests below cost, repaying their credits and, in some cases, weighing a crossing of the border simply to survive.
“Last year, the maize performed well. They capped the price, and the producers earned no profit. Now this year, others will cross the border because of the credits,” reports a testimony from Tougan. A single line sums up the predicament: “The producer weeps when the harvest is good, and he weeps when the harvest is bad.”
That contradiction raises a fundamental question: what has become of the priority once promised to those who feed the nation?
What Tougan’s producers say about the last maize season
Since coming to power, Ibrahim Traoré has consistently emphasised local production, economic sovereignty and Burkina Faso’s ability to manufacture certain equipment itself. Announcements concerning industrial units, notably those serving the needs of the army, hold a prominent place in that messaging.
Yet an economy cannot be reduced to its factories or its military hardware.
Industrial announcements alongside the immediate pressures in the fields
While new industrial capacity is presented as a symbol of sovereignty, farmers remain confronted with far more immediate difficulties:
- Purchase prices set too low to generate a margin
- Credit obligations that must be repaid regardless of the season
- Uncertain outlets for the harvest
- Weak profitability across an entire production cycle
Producing more only carries meaning if the person producing can also live from that work.
Why agricultural investment stalls
The difficulty in Tougan extends well beyond the specific case of maize. It raises the question of investment in farming. Which entrepreneur will accept, over the long term, to commit capital to a sector where a good harvest can drive prices down far enough to ruin the producer, while a poor harvest exposes him directly to debt?
This is precisely one of the major blind spots in the sovereignty narrative: a nation does not become economically independent merely because it manufactures its own weapons. It must also be capable of securing the incomes of those who produce its food.
The contradiction running through the model
The paradox is harsh. Burkina Faso wants to produce its equipment locally, yet some agricultural producers appear to still be searching for a way to move their own output without losing their investment.
By foregrounding images of factories, machines and military equipment, the authorities risk leaving another reality in the shadows: that of the fields, the granaries, the credits and the rural families awaiting concrete solutions.
The question Tougan keeps asking
Sovereignty is not measured solely by what a state can manufacture for its army. It is also measured by its capacity to protect the person who, every morning, places a seed in the ground to feed the nation.
In Tougan, the question is therefore not how many factories Burkina Faso can inaugurate. The question is simpler, and probably more urgent: how much longer can the producer keep working without earning a living?