Relations Key to Innovations – Peasants, Institutions and Technical Change on the Mossi Plateau in Burkina Faso

Abstract

How can technical changes within food crop cultivation in a country like Burkina Faso be explained? This is an important question for the reduction of poverty, for enhanced food security as well as for economic growth. Poor countries, where agriculture is dominating broad based economic growth, require increased productivity in food crop cultivation. This study builds on fieldwork from three villages, undertaken in 2001/2002 and in 2010. The villages are situated on the ‘Mossi plateau’ in central Burkina Faso, where chronic poverty is widespread. The study finds the character of diffusion channels and the role of social relations to be decisive in explaining access, choice and adoption of new techniques. The innovation system theory is found relevant, not least because of its focus on power structures and relations between actors. To further strengthen such systems, intermediary organizations should be supported and informal institutions transformed.

Keywords:

• Technical change
• Food crop productivity
• Innovation systems
• Burkina Faso
• Smallholders

Notes

For instance, numerous initiatives to enhance agricultural productivity are taken by the African Union and a host of emerging actors such as United Nations (UN) agencies, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA), World Economic Forum (WEF) and many others.

Vulnerability to poverty was defined as a risk of falling into poverty higher than 40%, with estimations based on extrapolations of a number of relevant household characteristics.

Between 2500 and 3000 inhabitants registered in the December 1996 census (INSD, 2000).

Not exceeding 20 km, and with roads of decent conditions.

It is interesting to compare adoption of improved seed varieties with adoption of mobile phones or motorcycles. Primarily, younger men use mobile phones and motorcycles but refrain from searching out new agricultural inputs. Different standards apply to technical changes in agriculture and in everyday communications. There are also differences in diffusion channels. Mobile phones and motorcycles are available at various market outlets, whereas improved seeds are predominantly distributed through centralized channels.

Our measure includes cultivators using improved varieties on part of their fields. Also included are improved varieties obtained not only through official, but all possible channels, reflecting what Delaunay et al. (2008) refer to as total exchange of sorghum seeds. This makes the figures of comparable scale.

Meetings between the organization leader and local authorities were held on his premises, not in the office of the authorities; the task of receiving external delegations was usually referred to him; representatives of local authorities behaved in a subservient way towards him.

There was a strong conviction in the chief's quarter that rice cultivation could not succeed on the chosen land, which was seen as badly suited. Hence, the letting of the land was perceived by the chief as a way to bring additional resources to the village, without putting long term land access or food security at risk (personal communication).

Boolean algebra as applied to social sciences is a technique that combines quantitative and qualitative analysis. Cases where a particular factor is present are indicated with capital letters and absence with lower case letters. Reductions are made where both capital and lower case letters correlate with the same outcome (dependent variable). Where correlations are found in a majority of cases, exceptions are analysed by close scrutiny of the richer qualitative information of these particular cases. Through repeated iterations back and forth between qualitative and quantitative information a deeper understanding of correlations is gained.

From the 1970s onwards, credits were distributed to village groups, with open membership – a system abandoned in 1996, due to decreasing reimbursement rates. Credits have since been given to organizations of cotton producers, a more narrow type of membership organization that receives special training from the SOFITEX. Producer groups are to a much larger extent based on ethnicity or kin – hence more exclusive in character (Kaminski, 2007, SOFITEX, 2011). The organization of village groups and cooperatives based on economic activities was encoded into law in 1999 (014/99/AN).

2001/2002 the dependent variable was incidence of fertilizer use and LOGIT regression was used. When the dependent variable was quantity of fertilizer use in 2010/2011, OLS regressions were used.

In the 2010 sample, plough use was found to be significantly dependent on a Mané village dummy variable and a group membership dummy variable. In the 2001 sample it was found significantly dependent on a negative Rapougouma dummy variable (Appendix 1).

While men take on an increased responsibility for soil preparation, the weeding burden on women increases, shifting their allocations of time between family (husband's) and own lands.