TERRITOIRES, TROUPEAUX ET BIOMASSES: LIENS ET CONDITIONS POUR UNE PRODUCTION DURABLE A L'OUEST ET AU CENTRE DE L'AFRIQUE SOUDANO-SAHELIENNE

N° ISBN - 978-2-7380-1284-5International audienceTerritories, Herds and biomasses: Links and conditions for sustainable production in west and central African Sahel. In African Sahel, the sharing of space, of crop residues and of animal manure by communities of migrant farmers and those of pastoralists who have settled for more than two decades on the same locality situated in the southern part of this region is difficult today. On this land, the expansion of agricultural plots at the expense of rangeland has restricted movements and feeding of livestock. In the same time, the common grazing on crop residues of farmers by cattle belonging to pastoralists has accelerated the export of organic matter and encouraged the decline of soil fertility of farmers. The extensive practices and avoidance strategies that are traditionally developed individually by farmers, herders and local authorities, are now unable to contain the threats to sustainability of agricultural resources and profitability of production systems. Based on the detailed study of actor's practices and the follow-up during two years of their methods and results concerning the production and management of crop residues and organic manure, this paper proposes a pragmatic approach for innovation. The intensification of production systems is based on models of crop-livestock integration that have been constructed according to 3 scales: plot; farm; and territory. The implementation of these models requires coordinating scales and deploying approaches of consultation and contracting among actors and also technical and also organizational support as presented in the paper