As part of the International Year of Family Farming, Burkina Faso will be hosting this year’s West Africa Farmer Innovation Fair November 25-29, 2014. The fair, organized by Prolinnova International, will showcase 50 West African farmer innovators in an effort to intensify linkages and learning among actors involved in agricultural research.
The fair, named Foire de l’Innovation Paysanne en l’Afrique de l’Ouest, or FIPAO, hopes to focus on smallholder family farming in an effort to develop a deeper understanding around innovations from smallholder farmers throughout the western region of Africa.
With Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Niger, Benin, Togo, and Cameroon taking part in this year’s fair, the spotlight is firmly on francophone countries and their own farmers’ creativity. One of the aims of the fair is to “distil key messages about research and development by smallholders.” The hope is to share information widely from development practitioners to farmer innovators and from formal scientists to the general public.
The event, taking place in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, is supported by several partners and donors including the West and Central African Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF), and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
