This text is part of the special edition Solidarité internationale
Ensuring food security for Burkinabe citizens by giving women access to agricultural land is what Oxfam-Québec’s climate-resilient agriculture project (PARC) wants to encourage. The initiative aims to combat climate change through agroforestry and market gardening.
Burkina Faso, like other countries in the Sahel, is facing an advance of the desert which is making the soil increasingly arid, explains Laura Fortin, program officer at Oxfam-Québec, based in Montreal. The greater variability of rainfall also contributes to land erosion. “Either there is no rain when we expect them, or there are floods, as we recently experienced in Chad,” she illustrates.
Moreover, desertification is progressing by 360,000 hectares each year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. This means that one in five Burkinabé faces food insecurity, conclude data from the Food Security Cluster. A rate that increased by 213% in 2021, according to Oxfam.
Added to this is the terrorist threat, forcing the displacement of populations, which are then concentrated in smaller areas, thus causing overexploitation of arable land. Thus, through agroforestry, Oxfam-Québec aims to regenerate the soil.
“The idea is to combine planting trees with agriculture. Often, we will choose complementary species that will mutually meet their needs and allow crops to function better,” explains Ms.me Fort.
The project was funded by the International Climate Cooperation Program (PCCI), managed by the Quebec Ministry of the Environment and the Fight against Climate Change. A sum of $525,000 of the total $700,000 was granted by the CICP. The rest of the amount was provided by Oxfam-Québec.
Giving women access to agriculture
In Burkina Faso, the social and cultural practices of the different populations do not grant women the role of natural resource managers. It is rather limited to the home, explains Azeita Koussoube, project manager for Oxfam in Burkina Faso.
The charity started the program in 2020. The initiative supports 1,300 people, 60% of whom are women. It was set up in the north of the country, in the communes of Bassi and Gomponsom, with the Vimbaoré/Naam cooperative, the Association for Education and the Environment (A2-E) and the Research and action on land (GRAF). The latter was responsible for collaborating with the local authorities to negotiate the provision of cultivable plots, explains Mr.me Koussoubé.
Oxfam-Québec’s partners have asked local leaders to identify landowners willing to sell land they don’t use. “At Oxfam, we always try to work with the most vulnerable populations. So, in this case, women who do not already have access to land that they can work,” recalls Ms.me Fort.
The majority of plots are devoted to agroforestry and others to market gardening. The first, totaling 40 hectares, host plants of sorghum, millet and groundnuts, in particular.
As for the two gardens of one hectare each, 40 women will work there. Among other things, they will grow carrots, onions, tomatoes and cabbage. “They are very motivated. Most of them did not carry out activities before. It’s not at all easy to have a plot to farm,” explains Mr.me Koussoubé.
Moreover, the project includes sensitization sessions on land rights for women and young people. This is “so that they know the law and their rights in terms of access to land”, she says. Thus, committees of six to twelve people made up of local producers and associations will work to identify the challenges that hinder land governance in the municipality and to propose solutions.
A sustainable vision
The project will end in 2023. But the gardens will remain in place, as well as the wells and boreholes that have been dug on certain plots of land, promises Laura Fortin.
In addition, access to land was granted for 10 or even 15 years by the owners of the plots. “They made a commitment that these participants will use the plot for at least ten years, unless they decide to abandon the site,” explains Ms.me Koussoubé.
A way for women to achieve financial independence. “And even if they do not continue in market gardening, they will be able to develop another source of income, strengthening their standard of living for themselves and their families. »
This special content was produced by the Special Publications team of the To have to, pertaining to marketing. The drafting of To have to did not take part.