Amidst broad debates about the “New Green Revolution” in Africa, input-intensive agriculture is on the rise in some parts of Africa. This paper examines the underlying drivers of the recent and rapid adoption of herbicides and genetically modified seeds in the Burkina Faso cotton sector. Drawing on 8 months of ethnographic fieldwork in the Hounde region, this article contends that economic and cultural dynamics—often considered separately in analyses of technology adoption—have co-produced a self-reinforcing technological treadmill. On the one hand, male farmers seek to increase cotton production in response to an economic squeeze. At the same time, broader cultural shifts toward individualism have created labor shortages as a result of families splitting apart, parents putting their children in school, and some women and young men refusing to provide free labor. Male cotton farmers thus increase production by turning to labor-saving inputs like herbicides, but these inputs create more debt, further locking farmers into intensive production. This article thus expands on the classic concept of the technological treadmill, demonstrating how economic and cultural processes intersect within a process of agrarian change to drive labor-saving agricultural technology adoption in the Burkinabe cotton sector. This expanded treadmill concept illuminates the complex dynamics compelling farmers’ choices to opt into input-intensive agriculture, and also helps explain rising farmer differentiation, as poorer farmers struggle to stay afloat and wealthier farmers expand.

‘Pesticides are our children now’: cultural change and the technological treadmill in the Burkina Faso cotton sector

Knowledge politics and the Bt cotton success narrative in Burkina Faso

In this inaugural Usable Pasts Forum, we make the case that archaeology has a critical role to play in reframing approaches to food security in the African continent. Readers who are unfamiliar with archaeology may find this an odd pairing, since the field is more often associated with characters like Indiana Jones than with anything “useful” in our modern world. After all, Dr. Jones’ missions involved capturing ancient objects of great beauty and were largely irrelevant to the practical concerns of modern populations (besides, of course, the destruction he wrought in securing those antiquities!). Yet, this view of archaeology is an outdated, colonial one in which exotic objects were mined by outsiders to fill the curiosity cabinets of Europe (Andah 1995a). In post-colonial settings, archaeologists have responded to this troubled history and changed their goals and approaches to incorporate the concerns of local stakeholders, especially in Africa (Lane 2011). “Usable pasts” is an approach that explores how the past can bemade relevant for the present. Bassey Andah, one of the first Africanist archaeologists to use the term, defined usable past as “a past that does not merely instill pride but also helps Africans build sociopolitical units equipped to fight ‘cultural poverty’ and negotiate justice at both national and international levels...” (Andah 1995b, p.151). In Andah’s formulation, usable pasts were explicitly political, in the sense that pursuing more “authentic” African histories meant modern-day Africans could be equipped with historical knowledge helpful to their own positions. This formulation of usable pasts has often been used in nationalist discourses that appeal to unique and impressive African capabilities, as is the case with the monumental remains of Great Zimbabwe and Mapungubwe (Pirikayi 2009). Usable pasts have also been construed more broadly, as those pasts “which can be exploited by all interested parties, be they Afr Archaeol Rev https://doi.org/10.1007/s10437-019-09347-9

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Usable Pasts Forum: Critically Engaging Food Security

Peasant essentialism in GMO debates: Bt cotton in Burkina Faso

This paper describes and critically reflects on a participatory policy process which resulted in a government decision not to introduce genetically modified (GM) cotton in farmers’ fields in Mali (West Africa). In January 2006, 45 Malian farmers gathered in Sikasso to deliberate on GM cotton and the future of farming in Mali. As an invited policy space convened by the government of Sikasso region, this first-time farmers' jury was unique in West Africa. It was known as l’ECID—Espace Citoyen d’Interpellation Democratique (Citizen’s Space for Democratic Deliberation)—and it had an unprecedented impact on the region. In this Deliberative and Inclusive Process (DIP), the ECID combined the citizens’ jury method with indigenous methods for debate and dialogue, including the traditional African palaver. The ECID brought together male and female producers representing every district in the Sikasso region of southern Mali, specialist witnesses from various continents and a panel of independent observers, as well as resource persons and members of the national and international press and media. As an experiment in deliberative democracy, the ECID of Sikasso aimed to give men and women farmers the opportunity to share knowledge on the benefits and risks of GM cotton, and make policy recommendations on the future of GM technology in Malian agriculture. Designed as a bottom-up and participatory process, the ECID’s outcomes significantly changed national policy on the release of GM technology and have had an enduring influence in Mali. In this paper, we describe our positionality as action researchers and co-organisers of the ECID. We explain the methodology used for the ECID of Sikasso and critically reflect on the safeguards that were put in place to ensure a balanced and trustworthy deliberative process. The ECID and its key outcomes are discussed in the context of the political economy of GM cotton in West Africa. Last, we briefly highlight the relevance of the ECID for current international debates on racism in the theory and practice deliberative democracy; the production of post-normal transdisciplinary knowledge for technology risk-assessments; and the politics of knowledge in participatory policy-making for food and agriculture.

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Let the people decide: citizen deliberation on the role of GMOs in Mali’s agriculture

https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/cuag.12147

“We Are Not Starving:” Challenging Genetically Modified Seeds and Development in Ghana

We Are Not Starving

Beyond the Genome: Genetically Modified Crops in Africa and the Implications for Genome Editing

The recent increase in research and commercialization of genetically modified (GM) crops in Africa has resulted in considerable and understandable interest from farmers, scholars, and practitioners...

Joeva Rock

Papers

“We Are Not Starving:” Challenging Genetically Modified Seeds and Development in Ghana

We Are Not Starving

Beyond the Genome: Genetically Modified Crops in Africa and the Implications for Genome Editing

Complex mediascapes, complex realities: critically engaging with biotechnology debates in Ghana.

Are genetically modified and genome-edited crops viable strategies for climate-change adaptation among smallholder farmers?