Saturday, 15 July 2006
130-3

Farmers Conception of Soil Degradation and Restoration.

Roger Kissou and Alfred Nébié Kanké. Bureau National des Sols, Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

The study was carried out in north sudanese zone of Burkina Faso in ten local areas distributed in three localities of Sanmatenga province. The major objectives were: (1) to research through interviews how the farmers of this region perceive their local land degradation; (2) to try understand according to them, the main reasons of their local land degradation; (3) to identify their local knowledge land restoration. The methodology used is sounding on a portion of the population according to the age and the stay duration in the village. The results showed that the natural factor is rainfall irregularity, the increase of population inducing a short duration of fallow and insufficiency. The human factors are demographic pressure that handicaps fallow application, ancestral farming practices, extensive breeding. The consequences of all these factors are soil denudation with a compaction and encrusting the leaching of top soil. In order to cure this phenomenon, the farmers use stony cords, “zaï” practice, “demi-lune”, organic manure and afforestation. Keywords: farmer conception, degradation, restoration, Burkina Faso, natural factors, human factors.


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