A harvest that brings ruin, not reward
In Tougan, the reality is bitter. Behind the discourse on sovereignty, industrialisation and national production, agricultural producers say they continue to face, alone, a far less glorious truth: selling their crops at a loss, repaying their loans and, at times, considering crossing the border to survive.
“Last year, the maize did well. They capped the price, the producers made no profit. This year, others will cross the border because of the loans,” reports a testimony from Tougan. A situation summed up by one particularly telling phrase: “The producer weeps when the harvest is good, he weeps when the harvest is bad.”
This contradiction raises a fundamental question: where has the priority given to those who feed the country gone?
The rhetoric of sovereignty and the silence of the fields
Since coming to power, Ibrahim Traoré has regularly highlighted local production, economic sovereignty and Burkina Faso’s capacity to manufacture certain equipment itself. Announcements about industrial units, particularly those intended for the army’s needs, occupy an important place in this communication.
But an economy cannot be reduced to its factories or its military equipment.
While new industrial capacities are presented as symbols of sovereignty, farmers remain confronted with far more immediate problems: insufficient purchase prices, debt, uncertain markets and low profitability of harvests.
Producing more only makes sense if the producer can also live from his work.
An agricultural investment trap
The problem in Tougan therefore goes beyond the simple case of maize. It raises the question of agricultural investment. What entrepreneur will sustainably agree to invest in a sector where a good harvest can drive prices down to the point of ruining the producer, while a bad harvest exposes him directly to debt?
This is precisely where one of the great blind spots of the sovereignty narrative lies: a nation does not become economically independent solely because it manufactures its own weapons. It must also be capable of securing the incomes of those who produce its food.
A brutal paradox
The paradox is stark. Burkina wants to produce its equipment locally, but some agricultural producers still seem to be searching for how to market their own production without losing their investment.
By consistently highlighting images of factories, machines and military equipment, the authorities risk leaving in the shadows another reality: that of the fields, granaries, loans and rural families waiting for concrete solutions.
Sovereignty is not measured only by what a state can manufacture for its army. It is also measured by its capacity to protect the one who, every morning, puts a seed in the ground to feed the nation.
In Tougan, the question is therefore not how many factories Burkina can inaugurate. The question is simpler, and probably more urgent: how much longer can the producer work without earning a living?