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Titre : Amending Biochar to Urban Farmlands : An Economic Evaluation of the Effects on Food Security in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) and in Tamale (Ghana)

Auteur : Hope Lesley

Université de soutenance : Ruhr-Universität Bochum

Grade : PhD in International Development Studies 2019

Résumé partiel
This study estimates the effects of biochar amendment on urban farmlands, in terms of, farm revenue, food security and farmers’ maximal willingness to pay for the technology in Tamale and Ouagadougou. This was done through an ex ante evaluation of the changes in soil quality parameters that will result from amending biochar to urban farmland. Data was randomly collected from 175 open-space farmers in Tamale and 220 in Ouagadougou. An agricultural production function was estimated for each city, by combining household-specific data on production factors and equally, household-specific soil quality parameters (SQP). From the regression analysis, it was confirmed that, in both cities, family labour and seeds were important in explaining the variations in total value of output. Also, whiles CEC, pH and Mg were the influencing SQP on land productivity in Ouagadougou, only CEC influenced that of Tamale. Nonetheless, the soil characteristics differ between the two cities, thus amending biochar to farmland will produce different changes in outputs and revenues. Simulation of biochar induced soil quality changes on land productivity revealed a 15% anticipated increment in output in Ouagadougou and 3% in Tamale. This translates into an average anticipated increment of 518USD in total value of output per farmer in Ouagadougou and 57USD in Tamale. Again, amending farmlands with biochar has cost implication ; the maximum amount of money farmers in Tamale and Ouagadougou will be willing to pay for the biochar technology at 10% discount rate is 460USD and 3,960USD respectively. Based on this result, the sufficient condition for amending farmlands in Tamale is not met and farmers are likely not to adopt. In the case of Ouagadougou however, amending farmlands with biochar will have large impact on the common crops grown. Given the sampled farmers, 62tonnes (t) of lettuce, 19t of cabbage, 102t of amaranths and 4t of maize will be added to the already produced volumes without biochar. It can thus be concluded that, addition of biochar will result in increased food and nutrition security in Ouagadougou.

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