Obiettivo
Deteriorating environment and food security are perennial problems for Sahelian populations. This project focuses on the existing agropastoral production system from production to consumption and trade, and the variety and efficacy of associated protection mechanisms operating in the event of food shortage at the individual, family and community levels in Burkina Faso and Benin. Using new and existing data on the three nested levels of household, local and regional factors the study will address the nature and direction of causal links between changing patterns of land use, household viability, terms of trade and migration decisions on the one hand, and the type and level of processes of land degradation on the other. Land, labour, income and storage resources will be quantified. Resource allocation in terms of decisions to invest in crops versus herds, storage versus consumption or sale will be measured, and related to the outcome of individual or household decisions to migrate. Dynamic modelling will be used to predict how household decisions on resource allocation affect long term viability. Such models can identify the variables explaining differences in strategy between individuals within households, between households within a particular system, and between groups in particular environments: The project will use a combination of anthropological, ecological, microdemographic, micro- and macro- economic methods together with optimality modelling to establish the main patterns of changing land use and their implications for agropastoral communities in Burkina Faso and Benin. The regional approach centring on terms of trade dovetails with the local case studies. The common sampling framework together with the modelling approach integrate data on production, economics, nutrition and demography within an environmental
perspective.for study households and communities. Burkinabé and Béninois government policy needs information on socioeconomic and environmental impacts of land use,terms of trade, migration and its implications. Models can identify which environmental and economic variables affect household decisions and how they influence the outcome of those decisions, and will Provide a means of predicting the effects of interventions and of prioritising their different components. The project will train African personnel in interdisciplinary approaches to environment and development.