ARTICLE / The key role of micro-enterprises in the attiéké sector in Côte d'Ivoire

Attiéké is a traditional culinary specialty of the inhabitants of southern Côte d'Ivoire, made from fermented cassava semolina. Mostly produced by a myriad of artisanal units run by women, attiéké is now consumed throughout the country.

Professionalizing these units to turn them into viable micro-enterprises and defending agricultural land from the pressures of urbanization are helping to reduce poverty and contribute to food security in Côte d'Ivoire. Focus on the pilot project in the village of Adattié, on the outskirts of Abidjan.

Processing cassava on three-stone stoves

The typical traditional attiéké producer has rudimentary capital : a biomass-burning three-stone hearth, a few basins and an unwieldy screw press. Know-how is passed down orally from one generation to the next. The activity relies exclusively on women's labor, mainly from the family. Yields are low, and working conditions are arduous, even dangerous (toxicity of fumes). Margins are highly uncertain, keeping families living from this activity in extreme poverty. Land pressure in peri-urban areas has exacerbated this situation : the reduction in land available for cassava cultivation has led to a steady rise in its price, which represents 2/3 of production costs.

Initially, local policies encouraged the move towards semi-industrial units : groupings of around fifteen women in new buildings, equipped with a motorized grinder, spin-dryers, semolina grinders and gas stoves. This double leap in scale and technology was intended to satisfy both domestic demand and a nascent export market.

The results have been mixed, notably due to irregular raw material supplies, leading to very low utilization of the new capacities installed. This is why the Autonomous District of Abidjan is now focusing on the professionalization of artisanal processing micro-businesses as part of the PROFIT (Promotion de Filières agricoles Territorialisées) pilot project, aimed at setting up an attiéké supply chain in partnership with development NGOs and the mobilization of all local stakeholders.

A pilot project on the outskirts of Abidjan

This involves first and foremost improvements in the processing activity itself. Thanks to awareness-raising and training initiatives, the most rudimentary or dangerous equipment can be replaced at lower cost. The switch to improved stoves for combustion (reducing wood consumption by a factor of 2) and better-adapted cylinder presses increases process efficiency, reduces the drudgery of tasks and improves sanitary conditions.

The initial investment made in collective training is also a first step in the micro-entrepreneurs' managerial apprenticeship, enabling them to pool purchases and exchange information on outlets, so as to better organize and enhance access to the local market.

The limits of company-level action quickly become apparent, however. Not all constraints can be overcome at the level of micro-processing companies, especially when it comes to expanding the business. To develop the sector, it is necessary to be able to supply processing plants in terms of quantity and, above all, quality (fiber and dry matter content). 

However, traditional cassava cultivation has been outstripped by the expansion of cash crops (rubber and oil palm). The PROFIT project therefore includes an agricultural component, designed to improve cultivation practices upstream in the value chain. On small-scale subsistence farms, simple, low-cost techniques, such as the dissemination of more adapted cassava varieties, can rapidly and sustainably increase yields and margins per hectare.

Here again, however, farm businesses do not hold all the keys. Pressure on land is very strong in the peri-urban areas where cassava is grown. The PROFIT project also includes a territorial component, based on a multi-stakeholder dynamic aimed at preserving farmland in the face of the expansion of housing estates. A working group has also been set up to improve the condition of local tracks, through collective maintenance actions and the search for institutional partners able to support the rehabilitation of certain sections.

In three years, more than 170 women producing attiéké have been professionalized, and have been able to increase their margin per ton of cassava processed.

From pilot to spin-off

In view of the results achieved, the PROFIT pilot project is in the process of being scaled up. With financial support from the European Union and Agence Française de Développement (AFD), 1,000 family farms and 200 agri-food micro-businesses will be integrated into the 3 regions bordering Abidjan, in order to improve the local attiéké industry. In addition to technical and business management training, these women entrepreneurs will receive support in marketing and access to credit, the aim being to improve the viability and sustainability of these micro-businesses and make this profession, often chosen by default by women, more attractive. A breakthrough achieved thanks to the dynamism of women micro-entrepreneurs, which is having a snowball effect and helping to improve food supplies from local resources, while at the same time reducing poverty.

Simon BALITEAU, Agriter Program Manager, Agrisud International

Williams Irié POIN, Assistant Project Manager for PROFIT in Ivory Coast, Agrisud International