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Focus
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| Frike: A Money Spinner for the Poor |
Miloudi
Nachit
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| Spikes parched and roasted (left) and green Frike grains (right). |
When the inhabitants returned to their fields they found the crop burnt, but only partially. To salvage what remained, they rubbed away the burnt layer to reveal the green grain inside. It tasted different, but delicious. They called it Frike (pronounced ‘free-kay’) and it soon became a staple food in the Middle East and the Maghreb. Today, the region produces an estimated 200 to 300,000 tons each year.
Frike is made from durum wheat. It is traditionally processed at village level, and is a major contributor to family income, especially in the drier areas. In Syria, over 50% of the rainfed crop area is planted with durum wheat, and Frike is the single biggest source of income for rural families, particularly in the dry north-west.
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| Farmers burn green durum wheat heads in the field – the first step in producing Frike. |
The IRDEN project aimed to provide small-scale durum producers with low-cost, sustainable technology options. It also sought to develop alternative income sources (primarily on-farm processing activities), especially for women, to improve the welfare of poor households. One such option was Frike production.
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recipe Durum wheat is harvested while the grains are still green. The plants are swathed, hand gathered, and laid in the sun to partially dry. The next step is either roasting (awns, lemma and palea are burnt away from the spikes) or boiling (the spikes are boiled in water for about 20 minutes). The spikes are then sun-dried, threshed and winnowed. Frike is prepared by cooking the grain in water (1:2) for 20 minutes. A minimum amount of water is used to avoid leaching soluble nutrients. |
The survey included two groups: producers of dried Frike, who grow rainfed durum wheat in winter; and producers of fresh Frike, who use irrigation, growing crops in both summer and winter.
Farmers reported that the sale of dried Frike gives one-and-a-half times the profit compared to sale of unprocessed durum grain. Fresh Frike, depending on quality, gives twice the profit of unprocessed grain. Fresh Frike producers, for example, reported average net profits of SYP 70,000 to 80,000 (US$1400-1600) per hectare.
Targeting the poor
The study found that Frike was a significant source of income for all households – but especially for the poorest.
In poor households, Frike contributes between two-thirds and three-quarters of the household’s farm income and 30-40% of its total income. These figures are lower (15-20% of total income) for average and wealthy households, for two reasons. Wealthier households, especially the fresh Frike producers, grow a range of crops, including irrigated cash crops such as potatoes and cotton, which account for a large part of their income. Second, wealthier households obtain a much larger proportion of their income from off-farm work and remittances, than do the poorer families.
Constraints and opportunities
Producers face a number of constraints – lack of land to expand wheat cultivation, inefficient roasting techniques, high production costs, and shortage of labor and of space for drying. The last is true particularly for dry Frike, which must be processed within a one- to two-week period; the drying alone takes 5 days. Other problems include health (exposure to high temperatures, inhalation of burnt particles during roasting) and poor access to markets, forcing many small-scale producers to sell to middlemen.
One potential solution: establish village cooperatives to provide economies of scale, facilitate mechanized processing, reduce transport costs and negotiate better prices. The IRDEN project is currently exploring this solution, in partnership with the FAO, UNDP and WFP.
In Syria (and elsewhere), off-farm employment opportunities are declining, especially for unskilled labor. This makes it all the more important to promote value addition in agriculture, to enhance farm income for the poorest groups. Frike, with established markets and proven profitability, could play a key role in such interventions.
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| Miloudi Nachit (m.nachit@cgiar.org) is Durum Wheat Breeder at ICARDA. |
© 2008 International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA).
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