The Boké mining region in northwestern Guinea also makes a living from agriculture and animal husbandry. Over the past ten years, an economic player has developed the region’s fertile land by producing rice over hundreds of hectares, to the great satisfaction of the local population.
From our correspondent in Conakry,
On the left bank of the river Rio Nunez, the vast plains of Denken, as far as the eye can see, hundreds of people work under the leadership of an agricultural director, Mamadou Bobo Denken Diallo. For more than ten years he produced to provide for the needy and then decided to build a factory: a rice factory. “I started producing rice since 2003. So for 10 or 12 years I could not market it and in the end did not even want rice padi. This is how I got the idea to build a rice factory to transform my production, because there is no rice factory in the country, he explains.
With a stone, Mamadou Bobo Denken Diallo made two hits. The farmers are looking for an income-generating activity, he needed a local workforce, he says. “Most of the villagers there are farmers. It is therefore an opportunity for them to come and work with the help of the machine. It is also a blessing for me, because I needed labor. ”
Close collaborators from the head of the rice factory, Saidou Diallo, appreciate this environment. “All villagers come here to work, and today all villagers or groups of villagers have their social fields, which we use and subsidize. Here we are not hungry, he assures us.
Aminata Sylla, an employee of the rice factory, confirms: “I have been there for six years. We work well here, we eat well and we support ourselves here. I have two children, I pay for school. The work I do here allows me to feed my family. ”
During this cultivation period, the employees are busy spreading the fertilizer over several hectares. “It is thanks to the generosity of the boss himself that people come in large numbers. In one week we can spread all the fertilizer we need. We have 40 tonnes of fertilizer to spread, over an area of 400 hectares, says Mohamed Chérif, work coordinator.
The Denken label produces several tons of rice. The World Food Program has decided to buy its production from him to supply school canteens initiated by the Guinean government.
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