Presentation

Throughout the world, and particularly in tropical conditions -characterized by high disease and pest pressure- organic agriculture would experience significant development if efficient and compatible agricultural inputs became available at lower cost.
The concern of the project partners is to adapt research to the local needs of organic market gardening development, given the high use of synthetic inputs by this sector and its importance for income generation in Burkina Faso, particularly for women. The project is built on scientific knowledge of the richness of several local plants in compounds contributing to plant health. Various simple and environment-friendly extraction protocols have already been developed in laboratory and will be tested at the scale of a micro-biorefinery. The project will install it on La Saisonnière women's market gardening site to produce bio-inputs (BI) from local plants. Bio-inputs are defined here as any finished product of plant origin representing an effective alternative to synthetic inputs in agriculture in general and organic agriculture in particular. To ensure the quality of the BI, simple and robust chemical analysis techniques will be developed and implemented locally within the university. These protocols will be validated in Belgium by advanced analyses. Socio-economic and environmental performances will be addressed through the realization of life cycle analyses and the use of multi-criteria environmental management tools in order to identify the most appropriate raw materials (biomass), products and processes for the protection of market garden crops. In a development phase, BI formulations will be produced by the women of La Saisonnière and tested on their plots. At the end of the project, the micro-biorefinery will be run by a management committee to produce BI for the needs of the association, but also for sale to other market gardeners.

Period

2020-2024

Partners

South coordinator: Yvonne Bonzi Coulibaly, UJKZ, Burkina Faso
North coordinator: Pascal Gerbaux, UMons, Belgique
SONYA, ULB

Themes

Organic farming, bio based products, sustainability assessment. 

Researcher(s)

Prof.Wouter Achten
Hamidou Kaboré
Updated on September 8, 2022