ADOPTION OF AGRICULTURAL INNOVATIONS IN THE SAHEL: THE ROLE OF MIGRATION IN FOOD SECURITY1

While income diversification through off-farm activities has long been assessed in the West African Semi-Arid Tropics as food security strategy, this study examines the specific phenomenon of non-local migration and its impact on food technology adoption. This phenomenon of migration is particularly important (46 % of the survey households in the Burkinabè Sahel have at least a migrant especially in the leading economy of francophone West Africa, Côte d’Ivoire) and remittances are mainly used for consumption and rural investments (more than 50 percent). The paper first outlines the theoretical links between off-farm activities and consumption smoothing usually found in the literature, and stresses the particular effect of migration on stone bunds techniques adoption, which is an improved Natural Resources Management tool through water harvesting and soil conservation. The predicted propensities to migrate are estimated in a first step and then included in the adoption regression. The results are corrected for the biased standard errors. The main findings show that migrant households have a significant higher average adoption rate and therefore are better able to ensure their food security through the direct channel of food production and the indirect channel of food market participation where they have better access and purchasing power