Industrial mining land use and poverty in regions of Burkina Faso

Industrial mining generally develops in rural areas where agriculture is the main subsistence activity of the population. However, there seems to be an incompatible coexistence between agricultural and mining activities, as both require a large amount of land. Given the extensive agricultural system in Burkina Faso and the expansion of mining since 2007, this study analyzed the effect of industrial mining land use on poverty in the 13 regions of Burkina Faso. The study examined the effect of mining land use intensity on cereal production/yield before exploring its impact on poverty by using several econometric methods and various data from the National Statistics Institute. The results indicate that mining land use intensity had no direct effect on poverty; instead, the effect is indirect. Indeed, mining land use intensity negatively affects cereal yield, and that reinforces the incidence of poverty in mining regions. Moreover, the results show that cereal production increases with cropped land. As cereal yield decreases with industrial mining land use intensity, this suggests that the expansion of mining would contribute to the jeopardizing of the food supply as well as the exacerbation of poverty in mining regions. Therefore, policies are needed to encourage the sustainable management of land and mining revenue redistribution in the mining regions of Burkina Faso.