Survie et performances de croissance des pintadeaux en milieu contrôlé au nord du Burkina Faso

Au Burkina Faso, les pintadeaux connaissent une très forte mortalité liée à des causes multifactorielles, et leur vitesse de croissance reste encore méconnue par les techniciens, tant de la recherche que du développement. Cette étude vise à évaluer les performances de croissance et le taux de mortalité des pintadeaux dans les conditions d’élevage améliorées. Le maximum du poids des oeufs incubés est compris dans la catégorie de 40-45 g. Les de mensurations des oeufs ont révélé une longueur moyenne de 47,4 ± 1,428 mm et 38,65 ± 1,08 mm en moyenne pour le grand diamètre. Le taux de mortalité a été de 9,10%, 7,00% et 9,80%  respectivement chez le producteur I, II et III avec une moyenne de 8,63%. Le poids vifs des pintadeaux à l’éclosion est de 26,59 ± 2,77 g pour les deux sexes. Pour les femelles, il est de 27,69 ± 2,18g et de 25,48 ± 3,35 g pour les mâles. La courbe de croissance des femelles est largement au dessus de celle des mâles. Les pintadeaux femelles ont un GMQ de 2,84 g et les pintadeaux mâles de 2,27 g pendant les deux premières semaines. Le Gain Moyen Quotidien est de 3,78 g pendant les quatre mois. Le test révèle un effet positif du protocole sur la mortalité des pintadeaux.Mots-clés : Pintadeaux, mortalité, croissance, Burkina Faso

Estimating farmers’ willingness to pay for weather index-based crop insurance uptake in West Africa: Insight from a pilot initiative in Southwestern Burkina Faso

© 2018, The Author(s). Weather index-based crop insurance is increasingly becoming important as a risk mitigation strategy that farmers may use to mitigate adverse climate shocks and natural disasters encountered during farming. While Europe, North America, and Asia account for 20.1%, 55%, and 19.5% of the total agricultural insurance premium worldwide, respectively, Africa accounts for only 0.5% of the world insurance industry. One of the key reasons advanced against the low index insurance participation rate in Africa is the failure to involve farm households at the initial conceptualization and design of pilot initiatives. Therefore, the main purpose of this paper is to design an improved participatory methodology that could help elicit information on the value placed by farm households in Southwestern Burkina Faso on a new weather index-based crop insurance management initiative. A key concept in the improved participatory methodology is that of the willingness to pay (WTP) of farm households for the scheme. Knowledge of the maximum amount that farmers are willing to pay for the scheme can help insurance policy providers and public policy makers to design and put in place measures that sustain index insurance schemes in a developing country context and improve welfare among participating farmers

Low-cost adaptation options to support green growth in agriculture, water resources, and coastal zones

The regional climate as it is now and in the future will put pressure on investments in sub-Saharan Africa in water resource management, fisheries, and other crop and livestock production systems. Changes in oceanic characteristics across the Atlantic Ocean will result in remarkable vulnerability of coastal ecology, littorals, and mangroves in the middle of the twenty-first century and beyond. In line with the countries' objectives of creating a green economy that allows reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved resource efficiency, and prevention of biodiversity loss, we identify the most pressing needs for adaptation and the best adaptation choices that are also clean and affordable. According to empirical data from the field and customized model simulation designs, the cost of these adaptation measures will likely decrease and benefit sustainable green growth in agriculture, water resource management, and coastal ecosystems, as hydroclimatic hazards such as pluviometric and thermal extremes become more common in West Africa. Most of these adaptation options are local and need to be scaled up and operationalized for sustainable development. Governmental sovereign wealth funds, investments from the private sector, and funding from global climate funds can be used to operationalize these adaptation measures. Effective legislation, knowledge transfer, and pertinent collaborations are necessary for their success

Low-cost adaptation options to support green growth in agriculture, water resources, and coastal zones

The regional climate as it is now and in the future will put pressure on investments in sub-Saharan Africa in water resource management, fisheries, and other crop and livestock production systems. Changes in oceanic characteristics across the Atlantic Ocean will result in remarkable vulnerability of coastal ecology, littorals, and mangroves in the middle of the twenty-first century and beyond. In line with the countries' objectives of creating a green economy that allows reduced greenhouse gas emissions, improved resource efficiency, and prevention of biodiversity loss, we identify the most pressing needs for adaptation and the best adaptation choices that are also clean and affordable. According to empirical data from the field and customized model simulation designs, the cost of these adaptation measures will likely decrease and benefit sustainable green growth in agriculture, water resource management, and coastal ecosystems, as hydroclimatic hazards such as pluviometric and thermal extremes become more common in West Africa. Most of these adaptation options are local and need to be scaled up and operationalized for sustainable development. Governmental sovereign wealth funds, investments from the private sector, and funding from global climate funds can be used to operationalize these adaptation measures. Effective legislation, knowledge transfer, and pertinent collaborations are necessary for their success

Effects of customized climate services on land and labor productivity in Burkina Faso and Ghana

Climate services favor adopting strategies to increase agricultural productivity, enhance sustainable development, and adapt to unavoidable climate variability and change. However, for climates services to be effective, they must be accessible and suitable to user needs. This study investigated the effects of customized climate services (CCS) on land and labor productivity. Portraying the case of CCS delivered in the districts of Bolgatanga (Northern Ghana), Dano and Ouahigouya (western and northern Burkina Faso) in West Africa, it used: i) historical panel data of daily rainfall, yields, agricultural input, and output prices; ii) cost statements of farm operations and iii) other survey data from beneficiaries of on-farm demonstrations (pilot sites). Different results were found across farmers on the demonstrator sites, with Dano and Bolgatanga recording the best land and labor productivity. Strong and positive effects were observed in Dano, where land productivity increased by 200% and labor productivity doubled despite consecutive pluviometric extremes such as heavy rain events and prolonged dry spells in the 2017 and 2018 cropping seasons. Further investigation showed that CCS was particularly favorable to land and labor productivity of farmers who were committed to the advisory given by the CCS providers. Therefore, as perishable goods, the success of CCS applications would require thorough coproduction, delivery, and monitoring for their effectiveness in improving land and labor productivity for agriculture in semi-arid regions of West Africa

Challenges of scaling up and of knowledge transfer in an action research project in Burkina Faso to exempt the worst-off from health care user fees

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Systems to exempt the indigent from user fees have been put in place to prevent the worst-off from being excluded from health care services for lack of funds. Yet the implementation of these mechanisms is as rare as the operational research on this topic. This article analyzes an action research project aimed at finding an appropriate solution to make health care accessible to the indigent in a rural district of Burkina Faso.</p> <p>Research</p> <p>This action research project was initiated in 2007 to study the feasibility and effectiveness of a community-based, participative and financially sustainable process for exempting the indigent from user fees. A interdisciplinary team of researchers from Burkina Faso and Canada was mobilized to document this action research project.</p> <p>Results and knowledge sharing</p> <p>The action process was very well received. Indigent selection was effective and strengthened local solidarity, but coverage was reduced by the lack of local financial resources. Furthermore, the indigent have many other needs that cannot be addressed by exemption from user fees. Several knowledge transfer strategies were implemented to share research findings with residents and with local and national decision-makers.</p> <p>Partnership achievements and difficulties</p> <p>Using a mixed and interdisciplinary research approach was critical to grasping the complexity of this community-based process. The adoption of the process and the partnership with local decision-makers were very effective. Therefore, at the instigation of an NGO, four other districts in Burkina Faso and Niger reproduced this experiment. However, national decision-makers showed no interest in this action and still seem unconcerned about finding solutions that promote access to health care for the indigent.</p> <p>Lessons learned</p> <p>The lessons learned with regard to knowledge transfer and partnerships between researchers and associated decision-makers are: i) involve potential users of the research results from the research planning stage; ii) establish an ongoing partnership between researchers and users; iii) ensure that users can participate in certain research activities; iv) use a variety of strategies to disseminate results; and v) involve users in dissemination activities.</p

Recherche et développement au Yatenga. Principaux acquis 1980-1981 (1ère étape de la phase d'intervention)

Almost all of the learning paradigms used in machine learning, learning automata (LA), and learning theory, in general, use the philosophy of a Student (learning mechanism) attempting to learn from a teacher. This paradigm has been generalized in a myriad of ways, including the scenario when there are multiple teachers or a hierarchy of mechanisms that collectively achieve the learning. In this paper, we consider a departure from this paradigm by allowing the Student to be a member of a classroom of Students, where, for the most part, we permit each member of the classroom not only to learn from the teacher(s) but also to "extract" information from any of his fellow Students. This paper deals with issues concerning the modeling, decision-making process, and testing of such a scenario within the LA context. The main result that we show is that a weak learner can actually benefit from this capability of utilizing the information that he gets from a superior colleague-if this information transfer is done appropriately. As far as we know, the whole concept of Students learning from both a teacher and from a classroom of Students is novel and unreported in the literature. The proposed Student-classroom interaction has been tested for numerous strategies and for different environments, including the established benchmarks, and the results show that Students can improve their learning by interacting with each other. For example, for some interaction strategies, a weak Student can improve his learning by up to 73% when interacting with a classroom of Students, which includes Students of various capabilities. In these interactions, the Student does not have apriori knowledge of the identity or characteristics of the Students who offer their assistance

Circular bioeconomy business models - energy recovery from agricultural waste: cases from Kenya and Burkina Faso

Agricultural waste can be widely adopted to manufacture biogas or biofuel, which is obtained from biomass or agricultural wastes like molasses, bagasse slurries manure etc. Agricultural waste is mostly burned or left decomposing on the fields, where it has potential for polluting the environment and release greenhouse gases. Recovering energy helps to (i) reduce greenhouse emissions by reducing environmental pollution from unwanted biomasses otherwise being burnt in the field; (ii) improve energy efficiency in heating systems from renewable energy sources; (iii) introduce renewable energy by substituting carbon neutral biomass for hydro-carbons (coal, heavy oil and gas); and (iv) Recycle ash residues or slurry as a fertilizer. The present report covers four case studies from Kenya and Burkina Faso related to recovering energy from agrowaste. Biogas International Limited (BIL) is a public private venture in Kenya involved in collection of market waste and recovering biogas, compost, liquid bio fertilizer. The Dunga Beach biogas plant in Kenya turns the invasive water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) on the shores of Lake Victoria to biogas energy, an alternative to charcoal burning for fish vendors at the beach. Keveye Girls is a boarding high school located in Vihiga County. Through consultations and interventions by the Department of Agriculture and Livestock at Vihiga County, Keveye Girls now converts cow dung into biogas, which is then used to power the school’s science laboratories and kitchen as an alternative to LPG gas and wood energy. Similar case studies exist in Burkina Faso. FasoBiogaz, an SME was founded by two Dutch entrepreneurs and supported by the Dutch government and is fully operated by a local team. FasoBiogaz operates the first industrial biogas plant connected to the SONABEL power grid and provides innovative resource recovery solutions producing 550 KW of power