Public policies for rural poverty alleviation: The case of agricultural households in the Plateau Central area of Burkina Faso

Safiétou Sanfo and Françoise Gérard

Agricultural Systems, 2012, vol. 110, issue C, 1-9

Abstract: Are there any economic policies able to break the vicious circle of the poverty trap in rural areas of poor countries such as Burkina Faso? To help answer this question, a detailed analysis of production systems has been used to elaborate dynamic household models. A mathematical programming model represents the economic decisions of farmers for the three farm types found in the Plateau Central region. Farms are linked together by factor markets. The model calculates a wide range of variables: incomes of agricultural households and their sources, land allocation between the different crops, cropping techniques used, agricultural production, consumption expenditure and labor allocation among the various activities including off-farm activities. These estimates can be obtained by farmer groups and aggregated for the Plateau Central. The model is used to simulate the effects of five economic policies and their combinations: (i) increasing the availability of irrigation water, (ii) lowering marketing costs, (iii) access to animal traction, (iv) access to credit, (v) reducing producer price variability. The analysis reveals different impacts in function of the different farm groups. Public good policies benefit all groups whereas policies aiming at improving capital market access or at diminishing risks on product sales primarily benefit the richest group. Policies focusing on access to equipment are of greater benefit to the poorest. Given the depth of initial poverty, it is necessary to combine all the measures to allow the incomes of the poorest group to cross the poverty line.

Keywords: Rural poverty; Burkina Faso; Agricultural households; Economic policies; Model; Mathematical programming (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X12000339
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:agisys:v:110:y:2012:i:c:p:1-9

DOI: 10.1016/j.agsy.2012.02.006

Access Statistics for this article

Agricultural Systems is currently edited by J.W. Hansen, P.K. Thornton and P.B.M. Berentsen

More articles in Agricultural Systems from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().