Cattle, Conflict and Change: Animal Husbandry and Fulani - Farmer Interactions in Boulgou Province, Burkina Faso

Cover photo: Cow at the inundated shores of Lake Bagré February 1997 (photo by the author) Cattle, Conflict and Change: Animal Husbandry and Fulani - Farmer Interactions in Boulgou Province, Burkina Faso PH.D. Thesis Peter Oksen Roskilde University International Development Studies Department of Geography and International Development Studies Denmark December 2000 Supervisor: Henrik Sécher Marcussen Abstract The study focuses on the animal husbandry of Fulani pastoralists and interactions with the sedentary crop farming of Bisa farmers in a Soudanian West-African savannah environment in the South-eastern Burkina Faso (Boulgou Province). Animal husbandry has, in the last couple of decades, become increasingly important in the southern regions of Burkina Faso where the major part of the crop farming in Burkina Faso is also taking place. Thus, animal husbandry and crop-cultivation share a wide variety of natural resources under conditions of increasing scarcity due to agricultural expansion and high rates of population growth. The study shows how these activities are predominantly based in distinct ethnic or socio-cultural groups, and that important complementary links between these groups support the feasibility of both activities. However, agricultural expansion is making it increasingly difficult for the pastoralists to manage the cattle herds, with the consequence that they are forced to abandon their villages and move to distant pastures often on permanent basis. This process is taking place through conflicts, especially over damaged crops due to stray animals, and the general relationship between the pastoralists and the farmers seems to have aggravated as the agricultural expansion pro- gresses. One of the most important complementary link between the two groups is the entrustment system where the cattle of the fanners are being herded by the pastoralists most often in long-term arrangements. Entrustment is important for the feasibility of the farmers' animal husbandry, as it re- duces the opportunity costs for the farmer in relation to labour that would otherwise have been allo- cated to maintenance of the animals. Thus, the farmers' feasibility for keeping cattle, and hereby for adopting animal traction, is closely related to the pastoralists living in the vicinity. Animal traction is a central factor in the intensification of farming systems. Following the Boserupian theories of agricultural intensification, the systems should gradually adopt animal traction, as need for labour-saving technologies would establish itself with shorter fallow periods and the consequent need for more elaborate tilling and nutrient management. In the Boserupian model agricultural expansion is seen as an integral part of and forerunner for intensification. The study shows how agricultural expansion and intensification are distinct processes that may not be seen as part of the same development. This is especially the case when the exploitation systems are founded on the activities and values of distinct socio-economic groups, as then expansion of one system constrains the other, which may lead to its abandonment. In the study, this process is illustrated by the consequences of the agricultural expansion for the animal husbandry of the Fulani pastoralists. As the feasibility of animal husbandry for both pastoralists and farmers hereby is undermined as the preconditions for entrustment are removed, it is shown that agricultural expansion may work against the further agricultural intensification through the mixed farming model incorporating animal traction. This process is in the study termed the expansion paradox. The expansion paradox is one among several complex processes influencing the development in the study area. It is in the study not possible to determine which factors are the most important. The major ambition of the study is to show the effects of the agricultural expansion on pastoralism. As the animal husbandry of the pastoralists is so closely related to the farming systems of the peasants, it has also been shown that this is not just a matter of the marginalisation of a minority group and their animal husbandry, but that it also has more far-reaching implications for further agricultural development. The comparative advantages of Burkina Faso, and specifically Boulgou Province, in relation to animal husbandry represent an important present and future economic potential. The Fulani and the entrustment system is a key to the feasibility of animal husbandry, which is why a marginalisation of the Fulani may have far-reaching consequences. Acknowledgements The study has been financed by the Ph.D. program "Political and Cultural Institutions in Develop- ment" at International Development Studies (TU), Roskilde University. The fieldwork was funded by the Danish Council for Development Research (RUF) for which I am cordially grateful. I have, during the years the project has been underway, enjoyed the interdisciplinary environment at International Development Studies, and I have especially benefited from the way that Ph.D. projects are incorpo- rated in the daily life at the Department. In the light of the reorganisation of the Ph.D. programs that is, and for a while has been, taking place in Denmark leading to a higher degree of "school-ification", I find that it is important for the formation of a researcher and teacher to be a full member of a team. The study has been formally associated to the interdisciplinary SEREIN program (Sudan-Sahel Envi- ronmental Research Initiative) funded by the Danish Council for Development Research (RUF). The study would have been difficult to accomplish without the support of this program with respect to local contacts, accommodation etc. I am especially indebted to Professor Anette Reenberg, Director of SEREIN, for her continued support that I have enjoyed ever since I first started my master thesis at the Institute of Geography at Copenhagen University. Other SEREIN partners I would like to mention are Jens Madsen, Mads Lund and Faho Théorphile, Director Projet PDR/Boulgou. My sincere thanks also goes to my supervisor, Associate Professor Henrik Sécher Marcussen, Interna- tional Development Studies at Roskilde University. His critical and constructive reading of my mate- rial has been an invaluable help. Friends and colleagues at Roskilde University have been important for keeping up the spirit when the process seemed long. There are many I am indebted to, but of persons with special relevance to this study I would like to thank Christian Lund, Tove Degnbol and Henrik Nielsen, with whom I share a fascination for West Africa. I also would like to thank the team-members at my internal evaluation, Professor Martin Doornbus and Mogens Buch-Hansen. Maribel Blasco did a painstaking job in cor- recting the English language in the report. My greatest gratitude goes to my assistant during the fieldwork in Burkina Faso, Yerro Sondé. His delicacy in dealing with the complicated issues in the villages, his great knowledge of the environment, and his enthusiasm in the subject was outstanding. Last, but not least, I am deeply indebted to the villagers of Sanogo and Lergo for their hospitality and patience. Table of contents I. INTRODUCTION 1 II. THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS 2 III. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 11 A. The nature of the information sought 11 B. Methodological approach 11 IV. AGRICULTURAL INTENSIFICATION, MIXED FARMING, AND THE EXPANSION PARADOX 17 A. Defining and measuring intensification 18 B. Intensification as a development model 21 1. Intensification and expansion, conceptual discrepancies? 32 2. The expansion paradox 34 3. Market and policy-induced incentives for agricultural intensification 36 4. New life in the intensification paradigm? 40 5. Preconditions for intensification 43 6. Summary 45 C. The mixed farming discussion 46 1. Conflicts 53 2. Animal traction 54 a) Summary 62 3. Entrustment as an alternative to mixed farming? 63 4. Summary 71 D. Narratives in development research 72 1. Desertification and the new ecology 78 2. Tragedy of the commons 82 3. The Cattle complex 83 4. Summary 84 V. FIELDWORK DESCRIPTION AND METHODS APPLIED 86 A. Identification of the study area 87 B. Comparative research 88 C. Sampling 89 D. The case method 90 E. Questionnaire survey with the Bisa farmers 91 F. Semi-structured interviews with selected Fulani respondents 93 G. Interviews with various key informants and the gathering of secondary data. 95 H. PRA methodology 95 1. Description of the ranking methods 97 2. Discussion of the field application of the ranking methods 99 I. The use of relational database in the treatment of qualitative data 102 J. Aerial photos and satellite images 103 VI. THE LOCAL CONTEXT - AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOULGOU PROVINCE 104 A. Basic characteristics 105 B. Agriculture 108 C. Animal Husbandry 110 1. Pastures 113 2. Animal husbandry management systems 117 a) Animal husbandry of the sedentary pastoralist 117 b) Transhumant Fulani 119 c) Bisa/Mossi farmers 120 3. Entrustment 121 4. Commercialisation 123 D. Intensification and animal husbandry in Boulgou 129 E. Summary 132 VII. AGRICULTURE AND PASTORALISM IN BOULGOU - THE CASES OF SANOGO AND LERGO VILLAGES 133 A. The Bisa villages 134 1. Agriculture 139 a) Fields 139 b) Crops and harvest 146 c) Management and agricultural practices 148 2. Animal husbandry 152 3. Summary 157 B. The Fulani settlements 158 1. Basic description 159 2. Recent settlement patterns of the Fulani 161 3. Land-use 164 List of figures Figure 1 Map of Burkina

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