• The most consumed vegetables in urban areas in Côte d'Ivoire are onions, African eggplant, okra, tomato, pepper, spring onion, cabbage and leafy vegetables. National vegetable production represented around 700,000 tonnes in 2013 with 161,000 hectares of rainfed and irrigated crops. Today, this market gardening production is barely higher than that of the years 1995-2000, which was 800,000 tonnes. It is insufficient to meet the demand of a rapidly growing (2.6% in 2014) and urbanized population. This is why the country continues to import vegetables regularly. From a qualitative point of view, the availability of diversified and healthy products is also a major issue from the perspective of food security and changes in the habits of urban consumers. One of the ambitions of the MARIGO project is to contribute to this diversification by promoting local vegetables known for their nutritional richness, produced in cropping systems adapted to agro-ecological niches and meeting the expectations of local stakeholders.

  • The activities of the MARIGO project are:

    • the establishment of a multi-actor platform (producers, private partners, public authorities, civil society and consumers) allowing the sharing of information, the identification of innovative solutions based on mutualism and the search for a consensus to their implementation;
    • the co-design of agroecological and resilient market gardening production systems by pooling the achievements of previous projects, multidisciplinary knowledge (plant and soil health, post-harvest quality) and innovations resulting from the project;
    • support for actors involved in the agroecological transition of market gardening production systems through training and demonstration actions in schools, vocational training centers and pilot farms;
    • the strengthening of agroecological market gardening production systems through advocacy with public decision-makers, communication with civil society actors and the development of academic training modules;
    • the assessment of the environmental impact of these new agricultural practices through the monitoring of soil and plant health indicators and product quality;
    • the development of a quality charter with a view to national organic labeling of local products and farmer networks.

  • The main results and products of the MARIGO project are:

    • the establishment of a sustainable multi-stakeholder platform on market gardening agroecology;
    • twelve leading market gardeners in each of the four study sites trained in agroecology, eight young researchers (theses) and twelve engineers (end-of-study internship) are also trained in the tools and techniques of agroecology;
    • a network of committed labeled farmers (in compliance with a local charter of good agro-ecological or even organic practices) has been created, as well as a national committee representing players in the market gardening sector for the definition, allocation and compliance with an Ivorian organic label;
    • pilot post-harvest conservation equipment is developed, audio/video clips, user manuals and good agro-ecological practice guides are produced and available to stakeholders;
    • academic and professional training modules are developed for universities, schools and agricultural training centres;
    • a varietal catalog of local vegetable species adapted to the environmental conditions of Côte d'Ivoire is produced;
    • multidisciplinary knowledge in plant health, soil health, post-harvest technology, life cycle analysis and socio-economics of vegetable production systems is produced.

  • Post Title
    Center for International Cooperation in Agricultural Research for Development

    CIRAD is the French agricultural research and international cooperation organization for the sustainable development of tropical and Mediterranean regions.

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