Rice growers play a fundamental role at the base of the sector. Thanks to increasing technical support, training in good farming practices and the introduction of high-yield certified seed, these producers are seeing a marked improvement in their performance, as this beneficiary can testify: "I am SOWARE Amina. I benefited from the FSRP project, a bag and a half of fertiliser and 10 kg of rice seed that I grew on 0.25 hectares. Personally, I used to harvest no more than 5 bags of paddy rice from 0.25 hectares. But with the seeds that the project gave me, this year I harvested 9 bags of 100 kilos from the same area. Thanks to this good harvest, I sold the surplus to support the family financially and resume my tontine and my business, which I had left for lack of funds. I also have a stock at home for the family's consumption".
The Tône rice mill, before the arrival of the FSRP, had groups that delivered paddy for annual processing. Since 2020, with the increase in demand for local rice on the national market, the mill has been unable to meet demand with its stock, estimated at 800 tonnes of paddy per year. Other difficulties were linked to the limited stock, including difficulties in obtaining credit from banks. Today, with the support of the FSRP, our area of intervention, which was limited to Barkoissi, covers the entire savannah region and extends as far as Kanté in the Kara region. We have gone from 1,700 producers to 16,800 aggregate producers, an increase that has had a considerable impact on the quantity of raw materials to be mobilised, which has risen from 800 tonnes to 2,000 tonnes of paddy. In addition to these impacts, thanks to the FSRP we have discovered areas with high paddy rice production, whose producers will be included in the list of Tone Rice producers", she confided. In terms of jobs created, the rice mill has gone from 32 to 73 people. In processing, the number of jobs has risen from 12 to 23, and the number of women sorters from 20 to 50," she concludes.
By acting on several links in the value chain, from the development of agricultural land to access to quality inputs and capacity building for stakeholders, the FSRP is playing an active role in the modernisation and competitiveness of the Togolese rice industry.
