Western and Central Africa
Bagui is touched by all the benefits he has got from interacting
with ICRISAT. He declared “I feel committed to the Institute and I am eager to try
out any new variety that it will give me.”
Her Story
“I keep half of my groundnut harvest for paying my children’s school fees,” said Assitan. She has sent all her 11 children for schooling, five of whom have completed their school final.
Groundnut is known as a woman’s crop in West Africa. In many parts of the region, it is sown and managed by them. They value it because it is a source of high protein and energy for their children, oil for cooking, and high-quality feed for cattle. Groundnut paste, known as tigadege is the most popular ingredient for making sauce in the region. Groundnut is above all a vital source of cash income for them.
Explaining why groundnut has become the
mainstay for women farmers, Assitan said, “Very often our men migrate to cities,
leaving us to fend for our children and ourselves. It is then that groundnut becomes
critically important 
to us, because it can be sold at any
time – as raw or roasted grains or paste.”
She added that groundnut haulms also fetch high prices, especially before festivals such as Tabaski, when people use it to fatten their sheep and goats. Even the empty groundnut shells are not discarded because they are used to form compost for fertilizing the soil.
A year ago, Assitan was invited to take part in ICRISAT’s on-farm trials. From her harvest, she carefully kept the seeds of ICGV 92088 and ICG (FDRS) 4, two high-yielding varieties from ICRISAT that are tolerant to foliar diseases. She is planning to sow them in the next season as part of her own choice to get better harvests that will allow her to fulfill her dreams for her children.
