Resilience capacity-building of smallholder farmers facing climate change risks: The value of practicing climate-smart agriculture techniques on groundnut and sorghum.

Abstract

In Burkina Faso, agriculture is facing three major constraints. Firstly, the extreme events of climate change such as drought spells and temperature increases. Secondly, soil erosion and low soil fertility. Third, the weak use of organic and chemical fertilizers because of its unavailability, its pricey and the poor income of the farmers. The improvement of soil, mitigation and adaptation of climate change variability is needed to build strong resilience capacity of smallholder farmers. This paper focuses on three objectives. First to analyse the key determinants of indigenous zaï and stone rows practices adoption. Afterwards to determine the influence of zaï, stone rows, ridge tillage, and zaï combined with stone rows on soil health and the performance of groundnut and sorghum yields, and eventually to propose possible policy responses.