Co-construction of Innovative Farming System for Crop-Livestock Integration in Dano, South-Western Burkina Faso

Abstract

In the context of climate, the rarefactions of resources, the decrease of crop yields and the increase of prices, crop-livestock integration become more and more an alternative to crop production intensification in the West of Burkina Faso. The crop-livestock contributes to the fertility management, the reduction of soil degradation, the increase of farmers’ income and the increase of crop yields. However, today many challenges emerged calling to develop alternatives strategies for crop-livestock integration. Indeed, with the population growth and the climate change, the access to the main resources on which depend crop-livestock is more and more difficult since these resources are depleting. In addition, the change of climate and the socio-economic context leaded to an important modification of roles played by crop-livestock integration in West of Burkina Faso. The objective of this research is to develop with stakeholders’ innovative crop-livestock integration in Dano. Based on the stakeholders’ perception, a conceptual model integrating the various points of view have been developed. Four innovative scenarios for crop-livestock integration have been developed for the next 20 years. Finally, an agent-based model has been developed to simulate the four scenarios and recommendations developed. The resulting model is a support of decision in the fact that it allows to assess the impacts of different scenarios on crop-livestock integration. The model is a support of discussion in this way it integrates the point of view of various stakeholders and allow them to discuss about the desirable situation of crop-livestock integration. The simulations showed an important population growth, the decrease of the per capita income and food production in the different scenarios.