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Unexpected Strawberry Crop Spins Burkina’s ‘Red Gold'

Yiwendenda Tiemtore sorts strawberries in his field in Ouagadougou, on March 28, 2024. (AFP)
Yiwendenda Tiemtore sorts strawberries in his field in Ouagadougou, on March 28, 2024. (AFP)
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Unexpected Strawberry Crop Spins Burkina’s ‘Red Gold'

Yiwendenda Tiemtore sorts strawberries in his field in Ouagadougou, on March 28, 2024. (AFP)
Yiwendenda Tiemtore sorts strawberries in his field in Ouagadougou, on March 28, 2024. (AFP)

In the suburbs of Burkina Faso's capital Ouagadougou, lucrative strawberry farming is supplanting traditional crops like cabbage and lettuce and has become a top export to neighboring countries.

Prized as "red gold" in the Sahel, strawberry crops brought in some 2.0 billion CFA francs ($3.3 million) from 2019 to 2020, according to agricultural support program PAPEA.

In their January to April season, strawberries "take the place of other crops", Yiwendenda Tiemtore, a farmer in the working-class Boulmiougou district on the city outskirts, told AFP.

Tiemtore has been busy harvesting the red fruit since dawn, before temperatures rise to 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

He harvests about 25 to 30 kilograms (55-66 pounds) of Burkina's popular strawberry varieties, "selva" and "camarosa", every three days, watering his plots from wells.

Cultivating strawberries, which thrive on ample sunlight and water, might come as a surprise in this semi-arid West African country.

But Burkina Faso leads the region's strawberry production, growing about 2,000 tons a year.

Despite being prized by local customers, more than half is exported to neighboring countries.

"We receive orders from abroad, particularly from Ivory Coast, Niger and Ghana," said market gardener Madi Compaore, who specializes in strawberries and trains local growers.

"Demand is constantly rising and the prices are good."

In season, strawberries tend to be sold at a higher price than other fruit and vegetables, fetching 3,000 CFA francs ($5.0) per kilogram.

Production has remained strong despite insecurity in the country, including from extremist violence and the repercussions of two coups in 2022.

As well as in Ouagadougou, strawberry production is prominent in Bobo-Dioulasso -- Burkina's second city -- even though "the sector's not very well organized" there, Compaore said.

Since the 70s

"You might think it's an oddity to grow strawberries in a Sahelian country like Burkina Faso but it's been a fixture since the 1970s," Compaore added.

The practice began when a French expatriate introduced a few plants to his garden in the country. Now more and more people are growing them.

"It's our red gold. It's one of the most profitable crops for both growers and sellers," he explained.

Seller Jacqueline Taonsa has no hesitation in swapping from apples and bananas to strawberries in season.

"With the heat, it's hard to keep strawberries fresh for long," said Taonsa, who cycles around Ouagadougou neighborhoods balancing a salad bowl on her head.

"So we take quantities that can be sold quickly during the day," she explained. That usually amounts to about five or six kilograms.

Adissa Tiemtore used to be a full-time fruit and vegetable seller.

She has mainly switched to selling woven loincloths now but takes up her strawberry business again in season because of the lucrative margins, as high as "200 to 300 percent".

"I start strawberry selling again when they're in season to make a bit of money and satisfy my former customers, who continue to ask for them," she said.

"We go round the different growers depending on what day they're harvesting. That way we get enough to sell every day during the three fruit-producing months," she said.

The end of April spells the end of the bonanza. "We go back to our other activities and we wait for next season," Tiemtore said.

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Hope Floats in the Amazon as Bacuri, a Young Manatee, Fights for Survival

Bacuri, a rescued manatee, breathes while swimming in a pool at the Emilio Goeldi Museum's scientific station in the Caxiuana National Forest in Para state, Brazil, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP)
Bacuri, a rescued manatee, breathes while swimming in a pool at the Emilio Goeldi Museum's scientific station in the Caxiuana National Forest in Para state, Brazil, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP)
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Hope Floats in the Amazon as Bacuri, a Young Manatee, Fights for Survival

Bacuri, a rescued manatee, breathes while swimming in a pool at the Emilio Goeldi Museum's scientific station in the Caxiuana National Forest in Para state, Brazil, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP)
Bacuri, a rescued manatee, breathes while swimming in a pool at the Emilio Goeldi Museum's scientific station in the Caxiuana National Forest in Para state, Brazil, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP)

Deep in silence, as if under a spell, children watch intently as Bacuri, a young Amazonian manatee, glides around a small plastic pool. When he surfaces for air, some of them exchange wide smiles. The soft rustle of rainforest leaves punctuated by bird song adds to the magic of the moment.

The children from riverside communities traveled for hours by boat just to meet Bacuri at the Ferreira Penna Scientific Base of the Emilio Goeldi Museum, Brazil's oldest research institute in the Amazon. Despite their endangered status, manatees are still hunted and their meat illegally sold, and they are increasingly threatened by climate change. Environmentalists hope that by engaging local communities, Bacuri and others like him will be spared.

The Amazonian manatee is the region's largest mammal but is rarely seen, much less up close. The reasons for this are twofold: The manatee has acute hearing and will vanish into the murky water at the slightest sound; and its population has dwindled after being overhunted for hundreds of years, mostly for its tough hides that were exported to Europe and Central America.

To help the manatee population recover, several institutions are rescuing orphaned manatee calves, rehabilitating them and reintroducing them to the wild.

Bacuri weighed just 22 pounds (10 kilograms) - a fraction of the more than 900 pounds (400 kilograms) of an adult manatee - when he was rescued and taken to the federally protected Caxiuana National Forest. He was named after the local community that found him. Two years and several thousand milk bottles later, Bacuri has grown to about 130 pounds (60 kilos).

Three institutions are responsible for his care. The Goeldi Museum provides facilities and educates nearby communities. The federal Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation assigns two staffers for 15-day shifts to feed Bacuri three bottles of milk a day as well as chopped beets and carrots, and clean the pool every 48 hours. The nonprofit Instituto Bicho d'Agua - meaning institute of water animals in Portuguese - oversees veterinary care, dietary planning and caregiver training.

During their visit, the children learn that female manatees are pregnant for about a year then nurse their young for two more, feeding them from nipples behind their front flippers - the manatee equivalent of armpits. This long reproductive cycle is one reason the manatee population has not recovered from the commercial hunting that persisted until the mid-20th century.

They also learn the species is endangered and that they are the ones who must protect it.

"You are the main guardians," biologist Tatyanna Mariúcha, head of the Ferreira Penna scientific base, tells the children, who spend the rest of the day drawing and making Play-Doh models of Bacuri.

With its auditorium, dormitories, observation towers, cafeteria and laboratories, the research station - two hours by speedboat from Portel, the nearest city - stands in stark contrast to nearby communities comprising clusters of wooden houses on stilts where families rely on cassava farming, fishing and harvesting açaí berries. School field trips and community outreach aim to narrow the gap.

"Caxiuana is their home," Mariúcha told The Associated Press. "We can't just come here and do things without their consent."

Local knowledge will play a key role when Bacuri is finally released. He is the only manatee calf under care at Caxiuana. Once he has fully transitioned to a plant-based diet, he'll spend time in a river enclosure before his release. That site will be selected based on where residents say wild manatees feed and pass through.

If all goes as planned, Bacuri will be the first manatee released in the Caxiuana area. Two other calves rescued in poor health died in captivity, a sadly common outcome.

While subsistence hunting isn't a major threat to the species, some fishermen still sell manatee meat illegally in nearby towns. Brazil banned hunting of all wild animals in 1967, with two exceptions: Indigenous peoples are allowed to hunt, and others can kill a wild animal to satisfy the hunger of the hunter or his family.

The threat of hunters has become harder to manage due to climate change, said Miriam Marmontel, a senior researcher at the Mamirauá Institute for Sustainable Development, hundreds of miles (kilometers) upstream along the Amazon River.

Dozens of dolphins died near Mamiraua in 2023, likely due to soaring water temperatures during a historic drought. Manatees avoided mass mortality then because they typically inhabit deep pools during the dry season, but recent droughts have dramatically reduced the water level, making manatees more vulnerable to poachers.

"As climate change accelerates, manatees may begin to suffer from heat stress too," Marmontel said. "They also have a thermal limit, and eventually it may be crossed."

That's why reintroduction efforts are so important.

Around 60 rescued manatees are being cared for across the state of Para, where Caxiuana is located. Bicho d'Agua is caring for four in partnership with the Federal University of Para and Brazil's environmental agency. One of the four, named Coral, was found near Obidos and airlifted 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) to the institute's facility in Castanhal. She arrived dehydrated and with severe skin burns, likely from sun exposure.

"The population has declined so much that every hunted animal impacts the species," Renata Emin, president of Bicho d'Agua, told AP. "That's why any effort matters, not just because one individual may return to the wild and help rebuild the population but because of the community and government engagement it inspires."