PRESENTATION ABSTRACT: "Food Poverty Dynamics in Burkina Faso: An Analysis based on Agricultural Data," by Samuel T. Kaboré, Claude Wetta and Francis M.P. Zida

This article analyses poverty dynamics, characterising its chronic and transitory characteristics. At the same time it tackles the role of growth and redistribution. The study focuses on Burkina Faso, a country where 90% of the population lives in rural areas and devote themselves primarily to agriculture. 46.4% of the Burkinabé population are in monetary poverty according to the last household living conditions survey which took place in 2003. However, these are cross sectional data and there are as yet no studies of poverty dynamics. The analysis in this paper is based on panel data on agricultural production from 2002 to 2007, collected by the enquête permanente agricole (EPA). Two techniques commonly used with this type of data are an approach based on episodes of poverty (spells approach) and a decomposition approach (components approach). Life histories have also been used to provide information on the escape strategies adopted by households. The first approach shows that a large proportion (72.7%) of households experienced at least one episode of poverty in terms of their agricultural production between 2002 and 2007. An analysis of households by agro-ecological zone shows some important disparities by region. Unsurprisingly, households in regions with higher agricultural potential experience episodes of poverty less.

The decomposition approach shows a high variability in the extent of poverty, where the largest rise of 37.9% is observed between 2004 and 2005, and the largest reduction of 29.1% between 2005 and 2006. This approach also shows, in contrast to the pure monetary approach, that it is the smallest households that are most affected by this poverty. The contributions of growth and redistribution to the variation in poverty differ by activity type and zone of residence. The growth effect favours poverty reduction throughout, apart from some regions where there is actually a reduction in agricultural production per head. The redistribution effect exacerbates poverty in all regions. In terms of strategies of escape from poverty, the life histories demonstrated that the chronic poor do not have enough resources to be able to resist shocks. However in a period of better economic performance and good rainfall this particular group of the poor can assure their subsistence temporarily and evolve relatively quickly into transitory poverty. The recommendation to the government is to invest in enabling access to agricultural equipment and fertiliser, and in construction of water reservoirs, as measures to significantly reduce or even eliminate food poverty in Burkina Faso.