Making decisions about agroecological innovations: perspectives from members of farmers’ organizations in Burkina Faso

Figures & data

Figure 1. A conceptual framework for analyzing FOs’ influence on farmers’ decisions about agroecological innovations. Source: Own elaboration based on Vroom (1964); Leeuwis and Aarts (2020); Engler et al. (2019); Shang et al. (2021); Schiller et al. (2020) and Kebebe et al. (2015).

Table 1. Overview of the structural elements of the Burkinabè agroecological innovations system.

Structural elements	Key features
Actors	The key actors are small-scale farmers (grouped into FOs), FOs and NGOs. NGOs are the main actors in charge of mobilizing resources necessary for farmers’ development of agroecological innovations.
Institutions	There are established (in some FOs) credit and subsidy policies, as well as predefined standards for organic products that aim to encourage farmers’ agroecological behaviour.
Interactions	These deal with the overall actions of FOs as the intermediary organizations in charge of establishing linkages with several agroecological innovations actors. These linkages help to ensure the flow of innovation-supportive infrastructure from diverse actors (which can be from NGOs to FOs or from FOs to farmers) and the marketing of farmers’ products.
Infrastructure	These are investments made by FOs (with the support of NGOs) regarding the organization of provision of knowledge, input credit, subsidies and marketing facilities necessary for stimulating their members’ agroecological innovations behaviour.

Source: Adapted from Iyabano et al. (2021).

Table 2. Farmers’ use of agroecological innovations.

FO	Farmer categories	Cropping system	Level of chemical input use	Frequency of implemented agroecological innovations
				Soil fertility management	Pest and disease management	Soil and water conservation measures
UNPCB	Category 1 (n = 14)	Organic cotton (rotation with soybean and/or sesame)	0	Compost (74%), manure (49%), cotton rotation with soybean (62%), mulching (42%)	Biopesticides (100%), trap crop (100%), improved seeds (100%)	-
AIDMR	Category 2 (n = 10)	Mixed sorghum-cowpea and sesame	0	Manure (93%), compost (93%), mixed sorghum with cowpea (93%)	Improved seeds (60%), biopesticides (26%)	Zaï (93%), stone-bunds (93%), demi-lune (6%)
	Category 3 (n = 5)	Mixed sorghum-cowpea; sesame and irrigated vegetables (cucumber, watermelon, carrot, okra, etc)	+
UGCPA	Category 4 (n = 5)	Maize (sole crop) and mixed sorghum-cowpea	++	Manure (86%), compost (20%), mixed sorghum-cowpea (66%), sorghum-cowpea rotation (40%), mulching (13%)	Improved seeds (100%)	Tree preservation: Faidherbia and sheanut (93%)
	Category 5 (n = 10)	Mixed sorghum-cowpea, organic hibiscus, and cowpea	+

0 = No use of chemical inputs; + = Average use of chemical inputs; ++ = High use of chemical inputs.

Source: Own analysis based on data obtained from 44 farmers interviewed in 2018.

Figure 2. The influence of FOs’ activities on the main drivers of farmers’ agroecological innovations decisions. Source: Own analysis.

Table 3. Description of FOs’ case studies.^a

FO	Date of establishment, objectives and number of members	Types of agroecological innovations promoted
UNPCB Union Nationale des Producteurs du Cotton du Burkina	Established in 1998 to ensure the organization of the cotton value chain through the provision of agriculture innovation infrastructure such as input credit, marketing facilities and technical training. The FO promotes both conventional and organic cotton with about 325,000 members grouped into many local farmers’ groups.	Soil fertility management: Compost, mulching, manure, rotations and associations of cotton with nitrogen-fixing crop (i.e. soybean)
		Pest and disease management: Biopesticides and trap-crop (such as okra to attract cotton pests)
AIDMR: Association Inter-zones pour le Développement en Milieu Rural	Established in 1993 to support the development of subsistence crops such as sorghum, millet and cowpea of village members of the centre and northern regions of the country. The FO is composed of about 700 farmers grouped into village associations.	Soil fertility management: Compost, mulching, manure, mixed sorghum-cowpea (a nitrogen-fixing crop), and rotation sorghum-cowpea
		Pest and disease management: Biopesticides and improved seeds
		Soil and water conservation measures: Zaï (which is a technique that consists of digging planting pits to optimize the utilization of water and compost/manure), stone-bunds and demi-lune (half-moon basins) and agroforestry
UGCPA: Union des Groupements pour la commercialisation en commun des produits agricoles de la Boucle du Mouhoun	Established in 1993 to organize collective marketing of surpluses of sorghum and millet, maize and cowpea in the Boucle du Mouhoun region. The FO is composed of 2700 members (grouped into various village groups) and later started the promotion of organic hibiscus.	Soil fertility management: Compost, mulching, manure, mixed sorghum-cowpea (a nitrogen-fixing crop), rotation sorghum-cowpea and improved cowpea seeds
		Pest and disease management: Improved sorghum seeds
		Soil and water conservation measures:Zaï, stone-bunds, demi-lune and agroforestry

Source: Own elaboration based on Iyabano (2021) and Iyabano et al. (2021).

^a See Iyabano et al. (2021) for a detailed description of the structure and operation of the three FOs’ case studies.

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Data availability

The data collected and analyzed for this study can be shared upon request.