Renegotiating access to shea trees in Burkina Faso

Renegotiating access to shea trees in
Burkina Faso
Karen Rousseau, Denis Gautier and D. Andrew Wardell
IASC Conference, Utrecht 14 July 2017

THINKING beyond the canopy
Shea parklands and trade
 A/F parklands cover 3.4 million km2 – shea the
dominant species (Fischer et al, 2011)
 A gendered value chain –
18 million women and up to
55% of revenues controlled by
women (Becker, 2001)
 Local, regional and (recent) global trades
 West Africa (8 states) accounts for almost all
exports (Burkina Faso and Ghana pre-eminent)
 Other ecosystem services

Shea distribution

Shea production trends in Burkina Faso
 Half of shea nut production is still consumed locally
 94% of households collect shea nuts
 60% of households sell shea nuts and/or shea butter
 Shea nut exports: 50,000 (1994) - 350,000 (2008) tons per year
 Shea nut price: 45 (1990s) - 130 (2003) - 250 (2013) FCFA/kg
 Value of exports increased x 3 (2000-2005) and x 7 (2005-2012)
 CBE and agri-food industries (AAK, Loders and FFF) absorb 90% of
total shea exports
 Cosmetics represent 10% of export trade

Tree tenure in Sub-Saharan Africa
 Land and tree tenures are distinct but entangled
 Rights to trees are multiple and overlapping
 Tree tenure is flexible and dynamic
Key challenge: A conceptual framework to address both
the complexity of overlapping rights on trees and the
dynamic processes of the re-negotiation of these rights
Sources: Berry, 1988; Fortmann, 1985; Fortman and Rocheleau, 1985; Rocheleau and Edmunds, 1997

Diatigui
 Tutorat – the agrarian institution in rural
French-speaking West Africa that involves….
 …the transfer of farming rights from a First
Comer (autochthonous), the so-called
diatigui, to a Late Comer (migrant)
 Land transactions entail social relations of
patronage and reciprocity
 The tutorat institution regulates both the
transfer of land rights and the social and
political incorporation of migrants in the
village
Source: Chauveau and Colin, 2010: 87-88 and Chauveau and Richards, 2008: 525

Schematic spatial organization of land use in
villages in western Burkina Faso
Source: Rousseau, Gautier and Wardell, 2017

Study sites and Methods
 Six villages in south-western Burkina Faso
• Denkoro (2,500) and Koikoi (1,090) – Bobo
• Dimolo (1,000) and Djegonao (930) – Lobi
• Finlande (800) and Me (1,400) – Tiefo
 Mossi, Fulani and Dagara migrants since 1970s
 Qualitative interviews and FGDs
 75-80 informants interviewed in each socio-
cultural area
 n = 235, 48% women (August – December 2013)
representing first comers and late comers (cf.
Lentz, 2005)
 Focus on inter-household competition for shea

Matrix of tenure control
Appropriation mode (across)
Management mode (down)
1
Undifferen-
tiated tenure
Access
2
Prioritized
tenure
Access
Withdrawal
3
Specialized
tenure
Access
Withdrawal
Management
4
Exclusive
tenure
Access
Withdrawal
Management
Exclusion
5
Absolute
tenure
Access
Withdrawal
Management
Exclusion
Alienation
A
Public
common to all
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5
B
Extern
common to n groups
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5
C
Alliance
common to two groups
C1 C2 C3 C4 C5
D
Intern
common within one group
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
E
Private
for one person
E1 E2 E3 E4 E5
Sources: Benjaminsen, 2002; Le Roy et al, 1996; Le Roy, 2011

Analyzing changes in access to
natural resources

Increasing competition for shea 1
 Migration and land pressure in western Burkina Faso
• 10 inhabitants/km2 (1960s) - 42 inhabitants/km2 (2006)
• Internal migration N-S (Fulani, Mossi and Dagara)
• Extent and length of fallows reduced
 The shea trade boom: commoditization of shea and
globalization of its market (after 2000)
• Local and regional trade for at least two centuries
(Wardell and Fold, 2013)
• Export value increased from US$ 3.1m (early 2000s)
to US$ 19.3m (2012)
• Complex, pyramidal purchasing networks (Rousseau,
Gautier and Wardell, 2015)

Increasing competition for shea 2
 Pressure on shea collection
• “In the past, shea fruits were collected everywhere and fruits
rotted in the fields whereas today even landowners have to get
up early to collect their shea, otherwise it will be stolen.” (Middle-
aged women, Lobi, first comer, Dimolo village)
• Theft of shea nuts in cultivated fields (also reported by Gausset
et al, 2005; Wardell and Reenberg, 2006 and Elias, 2010)
 Changing social organization
• Uncertainty regarding authority over rules of access to shea tree
products
• Former rules of customary chiefs (e.g. date to start shea
collection with ritual slaughter, bans on shea collection at night or
collection of unripe shea fruits etc) are no longer respected
• Fragmented shea management reflecting broader declines in the
social power of lineage and the autonomy of agricultural units

Uncertainty in rules of access
 Individualization of shea activities - no longer a
collective activity of women in lineages managed by
the matrilineal elders (Saul, 1989)
 Rights of management, exclusion and alienation
which enable the definition of rights of access and
withdrawal are no longer clear
“Today, it is difficult to know who owns the shea trees”
Old man, Mossi, Late comer, second generation, Denkoro village
 Shift in the gendered balance of the control of shea
activity: men are increasingly claiming ownership of
shea trees growing in their fields and hence, a
growing part of shea incomes
 Similar uncertainty surrounding land tenure despite
multiple attempts between 1984-2012 to adopt a law -
Reorganisation Agraire et Fonciere

Increasing private access to shea
• Early reports of changing access to shea in
Gourounssi areas of Sanguie Province and Lobi areas
(Wardell and Reenberg, 2006 and Crelerot, 2005
respect.) i.e. part of longer-term trends
• Shrinking of areas where shea is a common-pool
resource affects households with limited farming land
or poorly-stocked shea parklands
• Access to shea in bush areas is still open to all
villagers although starting to be claimed by first
comers to the exclusion of late comers
• Access to shea in shorter fallows (formerly open to all
villagers) now replaced by exclusive access by one
farming or family unit
• Access to shea on cultivated land is restricted to the
farm household
• Theft is a key strategy to maintain or gain access to
shea (91% of interviewees in Denkoro village)

Changes in access to shea

Narratives and power: profiting
from uncertainty
 Uncertainties surround the legitimate basis for common,
socially-accepted rules of access to shea trees and the
authority to enforce them
 Additional uncertainty about the nature of the shea tree
 Discursive strategies used to produce competing narratives of
rules of access
 First comers link secure access to shea trees directly to secure
access to land
 Late comers claim access to shea trees either by
• virtue of their labour investment or
• stressing the ‘wild’ (non-plantation) nature of the shea tree
“In my opinion, shea trees are not planted. They are natural. So they
can’t be owned by the diatigui”
(Old man, Mossi, late comer, first generation, Denkoro village)

Autochthony-based access mechanisms
 Three unequal power relationships in which first comers
manage to change access to shea to their advantage:
• Arrival of a new comer - understanding the different
spaces of the village and different rules of access
defined by the diatigui. New comers keep a low profile
to be sure of continued access to land.
• A new land transfer to a late comer – easier for a new
diatigui with no history of social relationships to
restrict access to shea
• A change of generation in the diatigui family – eldest
son assumes responsibility for rights of exclusion and
alienation of family land and more likely to tighten
rules of access to shea
 Similar patterns with fuelwood value chains in Mali
(Gautier et al, 2011; Hautdidier et al, 2014)

Counter-mechanisms
 Late comers in all three areas contest attempts by
first comers to establish and enforce new rules of
access to shea
 Theft the most widespread and growing mechanism
as legitimate rules of access to shea are uncertain
and subject to different interpretations
 Late comers prefer to use uncertainty rather than to
acknowledge adverse new rules
 Enforcement difficult as no social agreement and the
demographic significance of first comers in the
village is in decline
 Role of new institutions such as the Conseil
Villageois de Developpement in power sharing
 Power relations over shea access are embedded in
interpretation, narratives and meaning

Access to shea, access to land and
agrarian change
 Repertories of actions and claims to access shea are
bounded by latent land conflicts in SW Burkina Faso
 Shea conflicts tend to stop where land conflicts begin
 Thus, contesting access to shea can be seen as a
socially acceptable low intensity conflict used as a
strategy to maintain, gain or control access to land
 Reaffirms rights to shea nuts as a primary indicator of
who maintains the permanent rights to the land (Saul,
1988: 272)
 cf. Use of trees and gender power relationships as a
means to reaffirm land tenure in Gambia (Schroeder,
1999)
 Analysing access helps understand the intersection of
commoditization, social change and natural resources

Conclusions
 A new theoretical framework using a ‘matrix of tenure’ (Le Roy
drawing on work of Schlager and Ostrom) with analysis of the
process of changes in access (Ribot and Peluso) and combined
with an historical contextual dimension helps to better
understand the complex and dynamic changes in access to
natural resources
 Access to shea is uneven, socially constructed and
continuously shaped by the re-negotiation of local power
relationships
 Access to shea is moving towards more restricted access for
late comers
 Contesting new rules of access is facilitated by the
uncertainties surrounding legitimate authority, rules of access
and the status of the shea tree
 Shea access is being instrumentalized to claim access to land
 Shea is not a widely-available open-access resource and is no
longer a common-pool resource
 Changing access to natural resources plays a central role in
mechanisms of socio-economic differentiation and agrarian
change

Additional reading 1
 Becker, L.C., 2001. Seeing green in Mali’s woods: Colonial legacy, forest use and local control. Annals of the
Association of American Geographers 91 (3): 504-526 http://dx.doi/10.1016/S0305-750X(96)00132-5
 Benjaminsen, T.A., 2002. Enclosing the land: Cotton, Population Growth and Tenure in Mali. Norsk Geografisk
Tidskrift-Norwegian Journal of Geography 56 (1): 504-526.
 Chalfin, B., 2004. Shea Butter Republic: State power, global markets, and the making of an indigenous community.
New York: Routledge.
 Elias, M. and Carney, J., 2007. Africa shea butter: A feminized subsidy from nature Africa 77 (1): 37-62
http://dx.doi/10.193/jae/10.Suppl2.109
 Fischer, C., Klein, C., Fehrmann, L., Fuchs, H. and Panferov, O., 2011. A National level forest resource assessment
for Burkina Faso – A field-based inventory in a semi-arid environment combining small sample size with large
observation plots. Forest Ecology and Management 262 (8): 1532-1540
 Lentz, C., 2005. ‘First-Comers and Late-Comers: The role of narratives in land claims’. In Competing Jurisdictions:
Settling Land Claims in Africa. Eds. Evers, S, Spierenburg, M. and Wels, H.: 157-180. Lieden, Brill.
 Lovett, P.N., 2004. The shea butter value chain. Production, transformation and marketing in West Africa (WATH
Technical Report No. 2. WATH, USAID.
 Pouliot, M., 2012. Contribution of “Women’s Gold” to West African livelihoods: The case of shea (Vitellaria
paradoxa) in Burkina Faso. Economic Botany 66 (3) 237-248
 Rousseau, K., Gautier, D. and Wardell, D.A., 2015. Coping with the upheavals of globalization in the shea value
chain: The Maintenance and relevance of Upstream Shea Supply Chain Organization in Western Burkina Faso.
World Development Vol. 66: 413-427 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2014.09.004

Additional reading 2
 Rousseau, K., Gautier, D. and Wardell, D.A., 2017. Renegotiating access to shea trees in Burkina Faso:
Challenging power relationships associated with demographic shifts and globalized trade. Journal of
Agrarian Change http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1471-0366/earlyview
 Le Roy, E., 2011. La terre de l’autre: une anthropologie des regimes d’appropriation fonciere. Paris, LGDJ.
 Le Roy, E., Karsenty, A. and Bertrand, 1996. La securisation fonciere en Afrique: pour une gestion viable
des ressources renouvelables. Paris, Kathala Editions.
 Saul, M., 1988. ‘Money and land tenure as factors in farm size in Burkina Faso.’ In Land and Society in
Contemporary Africa, eds Downs, R.E. and Rehyna, S.P., 243-279. Hanover, NH: University Press of New
England.
 Saul, M., 1989. ‘Separateness and Relation: Autonomous income and negotiation among rural Bobo
women’. In The Household Economy: Reconsidering the Domestic Mode of Production, ed. Wilk, R, 171-
193. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
 Schroeder, R.A., 1999. Shady Practices: Agroforestry and Gender Politics in the Gambia. Los Angeles,
CA: University of California Press.
 Wardell, D.A. and Lund, C., 2006. Governing access to forests in northern Ghana: Micro-politics and the
rents of non-enforcement. World Development 34 (11): 1887-1906
 Wardell, D.A. and Fold, N., 2013. Globalizations in a nutshell Historical perspectives on changing
governance of the shea trade in northern Ghana International Journal of the Commons 7 (2): 367-405
 Wardell, D.A. and Reenberg, A., 2006. ‘Framing field expansion strategies in the savanna biome - Land
use and land cover dynamics in and around the Tiogo Forest Reserve in Burkina Faso’. In: Mistry, J. and
Berardi, A. (eds.) Human Factors in Savannas and Dry Forests: Linking People with Nature. Aldershot,
Ashgate: 19-52.

 Savanna parkland crop
 Common pool, open access and
’private’ property
• clan lineages
 Gendered control (historically)
of a NTFP
• collection
• manual processing and
• marketing
 Daily use - edible oil, soap and
skin care
Shea – some basics

Burkina Faso

Increased inequalities of access to shea
 Risk of increasing inequality in access to shea
 First comers trying to enforce stricter rules of access by
restricting access to bush areas and by requiring a share,
or the total shea harvest from late comers
 Late comers who arrived most recently are more likely to
face restrictions
 Women especially women in late comer groups are losing
access to shea and thus, to shea income
 Lineage, ethnicity and age are other criteria that may help
detail the specificity of change in each village
 Specific forms and outcomes of competition over
resources stem from specific conditions contingent upon
broader social, economic, political and environmental
processes
 Future influence of RAF 2012, if enforced, remains unclear

Uncertainty and plantation projects
 Zones of uncertainty (Crozier and Friedberg, 1977)
 Uncertainty is one of the few available power resources
for late comers
 Wild vs planted shea trees
 Uncertainty allows for negotiation and resolution of
conflicts
 Governments, TNCs and NGOs have recently expressed
interest in planting shea
 Farmers may not be willing to plant shea if shea
plantations would lead to more clear-cut rights of access
and hence, increased inequalities of access
 Reducing uncertainty may lead to a more violent
expression of conflict over access

Shea tenure and land tenure
 Strategies to gain or maintain access to shea
constitute part of wider strategies to gain or
maintain access to land
 Conflicts concerning shea are publicy seen
as women’s business (‘histoires de femmes’)
 Men are, however, very much aware and are
involved in finding legitimate locations where
their wives can collect shea
 Women and their historical resource, shea,
are used by men as spearheads to
renegotiate land rights whilst increasingly
tapping into women’s income from shea

Future research
 ‘Globalizations in a nutshell – Opportunities and risks for
women shea producers and West African shea parklands’
(CIFOR-CIRAD Concept Note to solicit new funding)
• Understanding the evolution of the shea industry in
West Africa (3 filaments – chocolate, cosmetic and
domestic markets)
• Coping with new shea regulatory frameworks (national
and international)
• State of, and the values and functions of shea
parklands in West Africa
 CIFOR-CIRAD-Bioversity-University of Leeds and
Savannah Nutrition + ICRAF?

“..the collecting of shea
kernels is entirely done by
women...” but anticipated
this would alter “...when it
was found out there was
money to be made from
shea kernels.”
G.C. Coull, Superintendent
of Agriculture and Forestry,
26 May 1924
A perspicacious observation

Global Shea Alliance
 GCS – a USAID West Africa Trade Hub initiative
 More and more shea nuts are being processed into crude butter
in 12+ factories across the region
 At least 25,000 tons of nuts are processed by hand by women
for export GSA has helped to challenge the wholesaler
oligarchy with many varied buyers in the industry, from large to
small, from local to international, from edible to cosmetic
 Active dialogue about traditional shea tree management in the
parklands, protection of young trees and exploring the
possibility of doing enrichment planting at a landscape scale
(cf. Export Trade, Agricultural and Industrial Development Fund
commitment of US$960.000 to plant in Ghana’s three northern
regions, 11 March 2015)
 Formal working groups on sustainability and quality have been
established, and draft standards developed

Renegotiating access to shea trees in Burkina Faso