Cotton production is at the heart of debates about environmental degradation and about unequal globalization, particularly regarding first-world agricultural subsidies and international trade policy. In Africa, cotton has two very different reputations in the international arena. On the one hand, optimists like the World Bank depict cotton as an engine of development and a thirty-year success story. On the other hand, skeptics like Oxfam and the New York Times portray West African cotton as a story of increasing poverty and environmental degradation. This research project will use a political ecology approach to investigate the intersection of cotton, poverty, and the environment in southwestern Burkina Faso, considering issues of success and failure at multiple scales. While much research has focused on the macro-level conditions affecting West African cotton, particularly the effects of developed country subsidies, only by looking at the micro-scale can deeper understandings emerge regarding how small farmers are affected by these broader influences and how they react in ways that affect cotton policy. Local variations and social dynamics influence resource allocation, agricultural practices, and environmental outcomes. These factors determine whether farmers are successful with cotton production. This project will examine (1) how international subsidies are affecting government policy and local communities in Burkina Faso; (2) whether cotton production has increased or decreased household wealth, both by examining the effects of world prices and household resource availability; (3) the interaction between cotton and institutions that provide access to land, labor, inputs, knowledge and networks; (4) whether cotton and associated technological changes have led to landscape and soil changes, examining the differences between resource rich and resource poor households. The investigator will conduct surveys with farmers to examine the socioeconomic aspects of cotton production, will use soil samples and aerial photographs to investigate environmental and land-use changes, and will conduct interviews with cotton officials at multiple scales to understand the politics of cotton production. The researcher expects to demonstrate that success with cotton, particularly in the context of declining world prices, is determined by the ability to access tangible resources like land, labor, and agricultural inputs as well as other less-tangible resources like markets, credit, knowledge, social identity, networks, and government programs.
Dominant discourses about cotton tend to create images of cotton as all good or all bad. In reality, some farmers have done quite well with cotton while others have not. This research project is expected to advance basic understanding regarding the differential abilities of farm households to mitigate the effects of shifting international cotton prices, uncertain resource availabilities, and changing environments. This research will help clarify debates in African studies as to whether these sorts of agrarian changes are leading to socioeconomic differentiation and a new phenomenon of landlessness as well as build on long-term studies of the ways in which African environments are changing.
