« In Koassanga, a village south of Ziniaré, 35km from the Burkina Faso captial Ouagadougou, it is harvest time. Displaced from Ouanobé, in the centre-north of the country, by terrorist groups, Bernard Sawadogo, 30, and his wife Georgette got a two-acre piece of land. They developed it and cultivated several crops. But for the Sawadogos, this won’t be much of a harvest. The millet, maize and sorghum have withered. On this late September day, Bernard and his wife are harvesting the few beans that are drying out. After more than three hours of work, the couple could not get the equivalent of a 50-kilogramme bag. « The beans didn’t produce much, » Bernard regrets. He is clear where the problem lies. First, terrorism. (…)
This article takes stock of the various destabilizing factors facing Burkina and its peasantry, foremost among which are terrorism and climate change.
