The bocages, a salvatory path in Burkina Faso

Today, certain agricultural lands in Burkina Faso, which had been dried out and unsuitable for exploitation, are coming back to life. Their yields have increased, the farmers who exploit them are finding a decent way of life and the biodiversity that they once sheltered is gradually prospering again... At the origin of these combined benefits: the establishment of bocages in the Sahelian landscape. Let’s zoom in.

A response to adverse conditions 

Burkina Faso is facing rampant desertification. According to the FAO, a third of the national territory, namely more than 9 million hectares, is degraded. Soils are becoming poorer due to increasingly frequent periods of drought, combined with deforestation, gullying and overgrazing. These phenomena, added to bush fires and slashand-burn cultivation, seriously affect biodiversity.

In sixty years, agricultural yields have fallen by half. However, a saving path emerged around thirty years ago: the bocages, “wégoubri” in the Moore language. They consist of a set of fields or meadows surrounded by hedges which form a continuous mesh in the landscape, with alignments of large trees in the axis of the plots. The richness of this method lies in its great completeness because crops, trees and livestock are associated with it.

Redesigning rural space

To fight soil drought and the degradation of biodiversity in Burkina Faso, farmers from eleven villages decided to found an association in 1989. Its objective: to experiment new farming methods that are more respectful of the environment through the bocages. This project aims to fertilise soil by limiting water runoff but also to preserve biodiversity and fight against overgrazing and bush fires. Accompanied by the NGO Terre Verte, the farmers decided to combine four elements: the development of hedgerows, water reservoirs, rain gardens and wooded roads. The objective: “to redesign the rural area” to “create a new, more pleasant landscape and ensure greater and more diversified production”.

The first pilot farm was established in 1990 in Guiè. Its principle is to coordinate local farmers by supporting them in setting up bocage areas. There are now five of them, with the pilot farms leading the implementation of the bocages. Owned by inter-village associations, they are supported financially, materially and technically by NGOs and institutions gathered around Terre Verte. Work on farms is divided into five sections: the nursery, technical supervision of agriculture and livestock, agricultural equipment, the land development unit and maintenance of the bocage.

To create a new bocage area, farmers need to agree on a piece of land before calling on a pilot farm to assess the feasibility of the project and to carry out measures to consolidate the land. The farmers and the pilot farm use a technique known as HLI - highly labor intensive - for development work. The farmers are ultimately allocated a plot of 2.56 hectares divided into four separate fields.

Retaining water: a priority

Lack of water retention in the Sahel puts soil and crops at risk. It only rains five months a year but the rains can be torrential, digging gullies in the soil, meaning they run off and form furrows, without penetrating it. To limit this phenomenon, farmers use various techniques. To begin, small dykes made of soil, allow water to be kept in the fields and transported to reserve basins. Secondly, the ponds collect excess rainwater which then gradually infiltrates the groundwater. Finally, hedgerows make it possible to replant trees, welcoming wildlife, retaining humidity and facilitating water infiltration, fighting the erosive action of monsoon waters. They also act as windbreakers in a region where winds can sometimes be very violent during rainfall. Farmers also set up pastured fallows so as not to dry out the land. Eventually, they use the traditional zaï technique which consists in digging a hole in the ground before sowing a seed. The bowl formed around the plant allows it to retain humidity and provides it with water in the absence of rain. The soils are then nourished and kept moist using millet stalks, animal excrement, leaves or even manure.

Remarkable yields

In thirty years of existence, the bocages have greatly prospered in Burkina Faso. 2,155 hectares of arid land have become fertile soil even though they seemed condemned. The resources drawn from these production plots are now sufficient to protect the families who operate them from famine and to supply them with firewood and straw.

A study on bocages in the Sahel, carried out jointly between 2019 and 2022 by the Research and Technological Exchange Group, the Research Institute for Development and La Trame association, shows that their yields are between 20% to 70% higher than those of conventionally farmed land. This is also what is observed at the Guiè pilot farm, whose sorghum production is two to three times higher than that of the best farmers in the region.

Within Burkina Faso, bocages are developing and establishing themselves even better as they are accompanied by structural changes. Thus, the Ministry of Agriculture is positioning itself in favor of this model and the Ecole du Bocage, set up in 2008, is spreading know-how to new generations. A promising path for the future.