Burkina Faso’s economy is heavily reliant on agriculture, with close to 80% of the active population employed in the sector. Due to the rapid growth of cities in West Africa, urban food supply systems are heavily pressured. As a result, agriculture is more and more spreading to towns and cities, where it is increasingly recognized for its capacity to strengthen the resilience of the urban food system, enhance the urban poor’s access to nutritious food, generate more (self-) employment and income, help cities to adapt to climate change and reduce their ecological foot print.

In Bobo-Dioulasso, the second-largest city of Burkina Faso and – as sometimes referred to – a commercial hub for agricultural products of the country, agriculture can be found in various sites throughout the urban area. Urban farmers, cultivating their plots side by side along the river, play a vital role in providing the local population with fresh produce. Although urban agriculture constitutes an integrative part of the urban economic and ecological system, it is also competing with other forms of land use, generating a certain degree of land insecurity for urban farmers, forcing them to develop strategies to break new ground.