The Context

According to the World Bank, Burkina Faso’s agriculture-based economy is still dominated by subsistence production and characterized by low crop and livestock productivity, low but increasing diversification, and the limited participation of formal private businesses in the development of agro-pastoral value-chains.

Like in other parts of the Sahel, farmers in Burkina Faso face challenges linked to climate change. Often, they are not equipped to respond adequately to the agricultural development difficulties. Not only are already-fragile communities more vulnerable as a result of extreme weather conditions, pests and diseases often attack and destroy animals and crops. Farmers do not often have the instruments and knowledge to deal with these challenges.

The government relies on the agriculture sector to transform the economy and improve the livelihood of the population. Research and development (R&D) is seen as critical to developing the innovative technologies to address these challenges.

However, by the early 2000s, R&D in Burkina experience inadequate financing, an aging pool of researchers, inequitable remuneration, and deteriorating infrastructure.

CORAF’s work in Burkina Faso

As a research coordination organization, CORAF works hand-in-hand with the national agricultural research systems of Burkina Faso as well as the regional centers of specialization on Fruits and Vegetable to devise science and technology solutions to enable agriculture actors to deal with some of these challenges.

Agriculture Research and Development in Burkina Faso

About fifteen public agencies conduct agricultural research in Burkina Faso. The Environment and Agricultural Research Institute (INERA) is the largest and works in close collaboration with CORAF.

Aside from its headquarters in Ouagadougou, INERA comprises environmental and agricultural research and training center located in Kamboinsé, and five regional agricultural and environmental research centers distributed among the country’s agroecological zones.

Five other government agencies conduct agricultural R&D in Burkina Faso, the largest of which include the Research Institute for Applied Sciences and Technologies (IRSAT), which focuses on food technology and the National Forest Seed Center (CNSF), which focuses on forestry research.

The higher education sector plays an increasingly important role in agricultural R&D in Burkina Faso. The University of Ouagadougou (UO), is by far the largest agency in this category.

Two nonprofit agencies—the Association for the Promotion of Livestock in the Sahel and the Savanna (APESS) and Albert Schweitzer Ecological Center (CEAS)—conduct agricultural R&D, albeit on an ad hoc basis. Private for-profit research in Burkina Faso is limited, although SOFITEX plays an important role in cotton research.