Population growth, dynamics of populating and the evolution of agrarian systems: The case of Koumbia (Burkina Faso)

Abstract

There is an enormous body of literature on the population growth that sub-Saharan Africa witnessed over the course of the past few decades. The majority of these works argue that reducing birth rates is an essential step in the fight against poverty, and that policy of a fertility reduction is necessary these contexts. And, though the term of « overpopulation» is rarely used explicitly, it is nevertheless this neo-Malthusian impulse that undergirds the mechanical association of population growth and the reduction of land resources. Despite these arguments, several sub-Saharan African countries and regions have led successful campaigns to absorb this population growth without seeing a threat to their food security. Furthermore, one could argue that it is thanks to the diverse responses of rural communities to population growth that the « urban explosion» in African cities has been able to partially contained. This case study, conducted in Koumbia, attempts to show how this region of Burkina Faso has been able to successfully absorb a sustained growth in population resulting both from natural growth as well as significant immigration of both mossi and fulani ethnic groups into the region. We observe that the increase in population density has led to a double process of both intensification (much like Esther Boserup’s analysis) and extensification (such as clearing new lands to make way for agriculture).