WHO WE ARE - Buslin

Burundi Smallholder’s Livestock Network (Buslin) is a start-up of the agri-food sector carefully designed for Africa.
In this video André tells us about the BUSLIN system and explains why it can really help to feed Africa:

In Burundi and in many other countries of sub-Saharan Africa, 90% of the population lives on family farming, conducted on small surfaces (0.3 hectares in Burundi). The increasing degradation of land (9% per year), the detachment of animal husbandry from crop production and absolute poverty (<1.90 $ per person per day), aggravate the living conditions of the population. 70% of the population suffers from undernourishment and malnutrition, of which 85% suffers from an animal protein deficit. 46% of infant mortality is caused by malnutrition and children who survive grow poorly and with brain deficiencies. This phenomenon and other problems of underdevelopment are a symptom whose cause is the inadequate cultural attitude (low educational level, laziness, superstition, negativity, etc.), multisectoral and multilevel transmitted from generation to generation and lived as such. Burundi Smallholder’s Livestock Network (Buslin) is a startup in the agri-food sector. In Burundi it is legally recognized and operational since 10 July 2015 with the principles of a social enterprise with the legal status of a Limited Liability Company (SPRL). The Buslin network was founded to tackle the aforementioned problems step by step, operating in the form of a capillary network formed by individual family businesses for sustainable human and economic development and supported by all stakeholders. In general, and in Burundi in particular, the institutional activities are: a) production and marketing of products (food and non-food) in the production chain of livestock (from income), b) production and marketing of fruit and vegetable products, c) general trade ed) specific technical training (capacity building) and education of mentalities for sustainable human and economic development.

Buslin is a simple and innovative system that, thanks to high technical and scientific skills and the use of technology, lays the foundations for a new economy in African areas in greater difficulty in order to improve the economic and nutritional conditions of the local population also contributing to the prevention of unfavorable migrations.

In particular, continuous growth training aims to build two levels of rural entrepreneurship:

1. Family groups: that in raising animals and / or in producing other types of food according to the strategic choices of Buslin, of the culture and productive potential of every single family, they experience a form of micro-entrepreneurship without risks and contraindications.

2. Local managers: people who show that they want to commit themselves in person by lending his activity as a manager of local units and participating to the profits produced in your area of competence.
According to Buslin's long-term operating plan, Managers and "employees" receive more than their salary but will participate and in the shares of the company they work for.

From the diagnosis on the levels of bad mental attitude, poverty lines, levels of hunger and malnutrition, we move on to the creation of targeted initiatives focused on a reasonable number of rural family or periurban pilot families (maximum 100 small family business for a local functional unit) up to an acceptable level of the aforementioned assessment parameters with zero absolute poverty, zero hunger and zero malnutrition with particular attention to the elimination of protein deficiency and malnutrition in its various facets.

Buslin employs a highly qualified and varied team. There are 3 levels of personnel to support current activities and to design new ideas for sustainable growth:

Founding members, for occasional services or full-time employees.

Volunteers, for non-remunerated but highly qualified specialist services (especially from Italy to Africa).

Business Support Services (BSS) for occasional specialist remunerated services (legal services), medical and health personnel, occasional support personnel.