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In Mali, products coming from processing should no more be confronted with difficulties of selling. The producing and processing women of the agro-industrial sector are henceforth equipped as far as sales techniques particularly marketing and negotiation are concerned.
It is thanks to a training introduced by the national coordination of the peasant organizations and the non-governmental organization, Oxfam.
For Diallo Fatim from the Women in Action cooperative, this training aims at reviewing for these women various aspects of the marketing art.
« The processing women are confronted with serious difficulties connected with the access to financing, techniques of marketing, slowness of debt collections and sometimes to the diktats of certain industrialists that impose low prices which we are obliged to accept in order not to lose big orders« , she raised.
For Bamba Fatim, one of the learners, native of the city of Sikasso, the packaging and the certification of their production are the main obstacles blocking the efforts of these women.
« Packaging is one of the big problems of the processing women. We have difficulty in making quality packagings because they are expensive and increase the prices of our products. The other thing is that approval and certification procedures of products processed by structures as the national agency of food sanitary safety or the national laboratory of health take much time and are expensive, making processing women refuse to try any product labelling process« , she declared to our colleagues from Next Afrique.
According to the trainers, once these challenges faced, the production of these women may compete with the imports if an adequate support is set up.
Original text by:Blaise AKAME
