Promote local milk in school canteens of Bobo -Dioulasso - Médiaterre

Improve children's food and promote the local dairy sector: this is the challenge of the Canteen project Scolait’res launched by Gret in 2021 in Burkina Faso, with the support of the Bel Foundation and the GO in GO in.

Led in partnership with the municipality of Bobo-Dioulasso, the Canteines Scolait’Res initiative has the aim of fighting infantile malnutrition in schools by diversification of food and extending the marketing of local dairy products.Its implementation is ensured by the Gret, the municipality of Bobo-Dioulasso and the Neema cooperative, a structure made up of around twenty dairy processing units.

Seven mini-laws members of the Neema cooperative are thus supported in the implementation of a local milk transformation program into yogurts.The latter are distributed twice a week to 4,660 children aged 6 to 12 in seven schools in Bobo-Dioulasso, a city located in the southwest of the country.At the end of an initial diagnosis, the teams of the seven rejected units benefited from a strengthening of skills on good dairy processing practices and the implementation of a quality approach.The distributions, initiated in mid-May, will resume at the start of the school year in September.

Distribution of milk in a school in Bobo-Dioulasso © Gret

"We want milk distribution to be able to extend into all schools in the town of Bobo-Dioulasso.Being a complete food, milk is necessary for the physical evolution of the child.This distribution will therefore be able to contribute to the development of children and will also boost local milk production, ”says enthusiastic, Adjara Sanou, promoter of the Komba Yogurt Dairy.

This action is an extension of the Go In project, supported by the European Union, the French Development Agency and the Princely Government of Monaco.In partnership with the milk interprofession and the APESS, the GRET has been supporting the small family farms of farming since 2017 to permanently increase their production, processing and market access capacities, in a context of strong competition with milkimported powder.

For Issouf Coulibaly, milk coordinator of the Go In project, "the idea of working in canteens was born from an event organized in 2019 in Bobo-Dioulasso to introduce families to local dairy products and encourage communities to support developmentsector.On this occasion, the mayor expressed his interest in an innovative project, which would both improve the quality of education and contribute to the economic development of the territory.»»

© Bouda Leopold

The distribution of yogurts, a source of motivation for students

25 % of children under the age of 5 suffer from malnutrition in Burkina Faso.Meals in canteens being mainly made up of cowpeas and rice, the introduction of yogurts makes it possible to diversify the diet of children and can constitute an additional motivation to go to school, because these products are very appreciated.The quality of the school catering offer has a significant impact on children's food, their learning capacities and the attendance of schools as Sanou Moussa, director of the Bindougousso school underlines.: "We are in a peripheral area of the city, children do not always live in decent conditions.When students know that there will be a distribution of yogurts, even big absenteeists come in progress.»»

This action also allows children to keep the taste of local milk, which tends to get lost in certain countries, where imported powdered milk is a standard. Cécile Broutin, responsable de programme « Développement agricole et filières agroalimentaires»» au sein du Gret explique ainsi : « Les enfants ont un rôle incitatif vis-à-vis des parents et peuvent porter des messages sur les choix de consommation de la famille.We also plan to strengthen the knowledge of parents of students and teachers on nutrition, so that at the end of the project they can continue to carry these messages.»»

The Town Hall of Bobo-Dioulasso has decided to finance 50 % of the budget for the purchase of yogurts, which opens up prospects for sustainability of the project.

© GRET

In addition, thanks to a new support from the Bel Foundation, the project will soon be adapted to northern Senegal, in three elementary schools in the Dagana department.Two mini-laws partner of the Asstel 3 project will be accompanied to produce fortified thiakry, a local product based on milk and millet, enriched with iron to combat anemia in young children.

Learn more about:

The School Canteen Initiative

The Go In Project

Gret activities in Burkina Faso

The challenges of the development of local milk sectors in the Sahel

The content of this article is the sole responsibility of the Gret and can in no case be considered to reflect the opinion of the French Development Agency, the European Union, the Bel Foundation and the Government of the Principality ofMonaco.