he First Regional Workshop on Promoting Regional Competiveness of Onion Production and Marketing in West Africa (SOPMEP) sponsored by ECOWAS and UNDP/AFIM was held at Pacific Hotel in Ouagadougou, Burkina on October 28 and 29, 2013 under the leadership of Agribusiness in Sustainable African Plant Products (ASNAPP) in close collaboration with UNDP Burkina Faso, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Handicraft of Burkina Faso, the Fédération des Professionnels Agricoles du Burkina (FEPA/B) and TRIAS Ghana.
Amongst the objectives of the workshop was to share the lessons learnt from the implementation of SOPMEP in Ghana and Burkina, help promote the benefits of storage and staggering of sales by producers to take advantage of high off season prices, and explore the idea of a regional onion knowledge sharing platform/exchange. The proposed platform/exchange was to share best practices on the main functions of the onion value chain (production, post-harvest, marketing) as they relate to increasing competitiveness of the regional value chain, and create a space for business linkages, which ultimately is to lead to immense benefits for the sub region through supporting the adoption of competitiveness enhancing practices and better coordination of the regional market. Developing a regional onion exchange/knowledge sharing platform, while noble, is fraught with a lot of challenges, as is common when dealing with issues that require cross border linkages. The sub-objectives below were therefore pursued during the onion workshop to explore how to move forward with a regional onion knowledge sharing platform/exchange:
- Identify gaps and constraints that hamper the ability of producers in West Africa to fully satisfy sub-regional market demand throughout the year.
- Develop regional strategies to take advantage of the high prices in off seasons and satisfy the sub-regional market demand throughout the year.
- Share findings and draw lessons from the SOPMEP catalytic project on the rate of adoption, benefits of adopting Good Agricultural and Postharvest Practices, the challenges and way forward with stakeholders in the sector.