Market gardening has developed on the outskirts of towns, but also in villages around surface or groundwater reservoirs. The effects of market gardening include poverty reduction and diversification of income sources. In Burkina Faso, the proliferation of water reservoirs throughout the country has led to a boom in market gardening since 2000. However, the practice faces many obstacles, the most important of which is the rapid degradation of natural environments due to lack of maintenance. The state of water resources is particularly worrying, as are the strong land pressures around water bodies.
How can good practices be promoted and bad practices abandoned in order to meet the imperative of sustainable development? This article is a contribution to this reflection.
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The study area is located in the province of Oubritenga. The data were collected on 7 sites from market gardeners whose main economic activity is market gardening. These are: Goué, Kourityaoghin, Rogomnogo, Silmiougou, Tabtenga, Tanguiga and Voaga, all located less than 30 km from Ouagadougou (Map 1). They are among the 11 market garden sites surveyed in the MOAD-INERA study.
Map 1: Location of the study area
The Goué market garden site located near the Goué dam (1,930,000 m3) has been used for market gardening since its creation in 1961. The Tanguiga site is located along the Tanguiga dam (450,000 m3) built in 1985. A perimeter of 8 ha was developed in 1988 downstream from the dam. Since 1949, the village of Voaga has had a dam and a 12 ha developed plain. However, over the years and despite the repairs to the dam (1984 and 1993), it can only irrigate 9 ha due to various degradations.
The Loumbila reservoir was created in 1947 by damming the Massili River (a tributary of the Nakambé). This reservoir drains a catchment area of 2,120 km2. Its full water surface area was 16.8 km2 , with an average depth of 2.15 m. After 2004, the capacity of the reservoir was increased to 42,000,000 m3 by raising the weir. Its main purpose remains the supply of water to the city of Ouagadougou.
This reservoir, known as the Loumbila dam, has more than 50 riverside villages. Its contribution to the socio-economic activities of the local population is considerable (market gardening, fishing, livestock, hotels, forestry). The total surface area used for market gardening is 347 ha and the occupation of the banks and the basin of the reservoir by market gardeners is one of the main characteristics of the dam. The sites of Kourityaoghin, Rogomnogo and Tabtenga are on the floodplain of the Loumbila dam. Finally, the Silmiougou site includes the lowlands exploited along the arms of the intermittent streams in the village.
Main results
Old-fashioned know-how in vegetable production
The profile of the respondents, all male, indicates that they are between 25 and 68 years old, 26% of whom are between 25 and 34 years old. The plots of land farmed are smaller than 2000 m2 for 61% of the market gardeners, some of which are between 300 and less than 500 m2 , whereas it is accepted that 2000 m2 is the minimum surface area for a professional practice of the activity. The year of installation on the sites ranges from 5 to over 35 years. The dams used by 92.7% of market gardeners are the main source of water, except in Silmiougou where production takes place in the lowlands (7.3%).
Two types of development can be observed: market gardening within hydro-agricultural perimeters of the gravity type downstream of the reservoirs and spontaneous development upstream or downstream of the reservoirs.
It is the second type, spontaneous development, which is the focus of innovation and know-how.
The development of several production cycles during the market gardening season thanks to a real strategy of conquering the banks as the water recedes. At the beginning of the market gardening season (September-October), 21.9% of the plots surveyed were less than 30 metres from the water. Their harvests (early crops) are marketed at favourable prices in Ouagadougou.
As the market gardening season progresses, these plots become the furthest from the water reservoir, sometimes up to 450m away. On the land conquered on the banks, several production cycles are carried out: 53.7% of the market gardeners practice a second production cycle and 26.8% a third cycle. Thus, 62.6% of the plots are located on the banks of lakes and rivers and in the basins of water reservoirs.
Skills have been developed to access water. Trenches 300 to 400 metres long are dug by hand from the water reservoirs to the plots of land in order to bring the water to them (photo 1).
Photo 1: Loumbila dam (A: Trench dug for water transport; B. Direct water intake with motor pumps) Photo: Agence de l’Eau du Nakanbé (AEN)
The sinking of wells is widely practiced. These shallow wells (10m maximum) are dug by market gardeners or by well-diggers. The use of rubble stones and cement to avoid landslides during the rainy season are new techniques that are increasingly adopted (photo 2). The use of PVC pipes has been developed for the transport of water (photo 3). These pipes run from water bodies and wells to the plants.
Know-how has been developed in irrigation. The use of motor-driven pumps is increasingly common, with 70 market gardeners (56.9%) having them, of which 91.4% were purchased and 8.6% rented. For large plots (2,000 m2 and more), it is not unusual to have 2 to 3 motor pumps and 25 to 60 PVC pipes. Small water collection basins are built on the canals dug in the plots to ensure manual watering using watering cans and buckets (photo 4).
Photo 4: Manual irrigation with buckets (Photo DAMA M.M, October 2013)
The know-how is evident in the making of the boards. Different types of planks are made: linear, rectangular, small lyélé type plank. Each type makes it possible to adapt the cultivation operations according to the crop and the area it occupies, the accessibility to water, the irrigation equipment, the fertilisers (organic and mineral fertilisers) and the pesticides (chemical and biological) used.
For example, the lyélé type boards, small boards, (Photo 5) are mainly used for the production of leafy vegetables: sorrel, cowpea leaves, amaranth, vegetable cortea. They allow women to produce large quantities of vegetables on areas (100 to 200 m2 ) given to them by their husbands on their market gardening plots.
Photo 5: « Lyle » type boards
C. Model of origin in Lyélé country (Sanguié) – Burk-nourriture_8 website; D. Adapted Lyélé plates bearing leafy vegetables, DAMA M.M. photo, March 2013
- A participatory approach to questioning the old model
Following the 1992 Rio Summit on Sustainable Development, Burkina Faso has been engaged in the Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) process since 2003. The Nakambé watershed is now managed by the Nakambé Water Agency, created in 2007. One of its missions is to engage the water stakeholders in the concerted, integrated, balanced and sustainable management of the water resources of the catchment area.
Fighting against the encroachment of river banks, the silting up of the Loumbila dam and its pollution
The Local Water Committee (CLE) of Massili has listed 2686 users of the reservoir, including 2323 market gardeners. Actions to protect and preserve the water of the dam are underway: Materialization of the 100-metre protection perimeter (in accordance with the regulations in Burkina Faso); vegetation of the delimited space (Prosopis Juliflora) planted on the edge of the strip and fruit trees planted inside the strip); prospect of relocation and resettlement of the farmers installed on the banks and in the basin; Awareness-raising on water wastage through excessive use of motor pumps; awareness-raising on the efficient use of chemical fertilisers, pesticides and phytosanitary products; training of users on the treatment of chemical product packaging and the management of excreta.
Combating land degradation
Raising awareness among market gardeners to reduce the number of trenches opened. Avoiding the proliferation of precarious wells whose frequent collapses contribute to land degradation. On the other hand, the innovations introduced in the reinforcement of walls and the construction of dug wells were encouraged.
Fighting against land pressure linked to the strong spontaneous occupation of water reservoirs
The production of information for the preservation and protection of water resources is useful: for example, identifying the reservoirs where there is a high level of spontaneous occupation for market gardening. In 2015, the services of the Ministry of Agriculture identified around 600 producers around the Tanguiga water body (450,000 m3), the vast majority of whom are located upstream in the undeveloped parts.
This high land pressure can be explained by a greater influx of seasonal market gardeners from elsewhere. In 2013, they came from 8 villages and from 24 villages in 2015. For several years now, this high demand for irrigation water has led to the early drying up of the dam. This is not an isolated occurrence in the Nakanbé watershed, which has more than 500 water storage facilities.
Establishment of market gardeners’ organisations
A weak organisation of market gardeners was found at the survey sites. Five associations were identified: Manegdezenga, Teel-Taaba, Kombastaaba, Wendpanga and the Tegawendé Association of Tabtenga (ATT).
In order to benefit from the various state and private (NGO) supports, market gardeners are invited to make existing organisations dynamic and functional and to create new ones. The granting of credit, supervision and capacity building can only be done through these organised structures.
Conclusion
The expertise of yesteryear is faced with the challenge of sustainable development, which requires a transformation of practices. The involvement of populations in the management of their resources on a local scale in order to make the most of them in a sustainable way is being implemented with IWRM. It is necessary to stimulate and support market gardening activities towards forms of exploitation that reconcile ecological balance and the objectives of the populations, mainly their need to diversify their income and/or food security. Self-sufficiency, aimed at in the framework of concerted actions, appears to be the best alternative.
DAMA Mariam Myriam1, 2
1 : Department of Natural Resources Management and Production Systems (GRN-SP), Institute of Environment and Agricultural Research (INERA);
2: Dynamique des Espaces et Sociétés (LDES) Laboratory – Department of Geography – Joseph Ki-Zerbo University, Ouagadougou
Email: mamyriamdama@yahoo.com
Source: Lefaso.net
