Planners or performers? Reflections on indigenous dryland farming in Northern Burkina Faso

Abstract

Indigenous agricultural practices in semiarid West Africa must be seen as dynamic operations that serve different ends. These ends are not only agricultural, but symbolic. By highlighting how farmers in the Central Plateau region of Burkina Faso organize their farming strategies, the "agriculture as performance" arguments developed by Richards (1987, 1993) can be both challenged and extended from the humid forest zone of West Africa. Farmers, it can be argued, are also keen "planners;" in order to meet their goals they invest considerable effort in overcoming ecological constraints, and also spend time forging links with various institutions working for agricultural development. Technologies..