Food dimension of poverty in Burkina Faso

The availability of adequate instruments for estimating populations and identifying areas at risk is fundamental for the prevention and management of food insecurity. It is in the implementation of these instruments that the present study has set itself the objective of contributing to the development of a food insecurity risk model and estimation of vulnerable populations. The analysis of secondary data from the 2002-2003 permanent agricultural survey at household level made it possible to understand the cause of the inability of certain layers of the population to take care of themselves from a nutritional point of view. The estimation of vulnerable populations was possible thanks to the generalized formula of the poverty index developed by Foster et al. (1984). This formula made it possible to define new concepts of food poverty. The results reveal that at the national level, 42.36% of the agricultural population are unable to meet their consumption needs on the basis of their domestic cereal production (poor autonomous cereal populations); 32.23% are apparent cereal poor and 34.10% are real cereal poor. Taking into account other food products (tubers and legumes), as well as self-consumption of meat, shows that 44.98% of agricultural populations are food poor while 46.61% are energy poor. The proportion of the energy poor was used to identify administrative regions and provinces at risk of food insecurity according to the thresholds set by the Inter-State Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel (CILSS). It has also been used to set up vulnerability groups thanks to the thresholds set by the World Food Program (WFP). When we look at the socio-demographic and economic characteristics of energy poverty groups, we notice that energy poor households have on average a relatively larger size (10 people compared to 8 for the non-poor) with a high dependency rate (79 , 27% against 50.73%). In addition, they operate small areas (0.23 ha per individual against 0.52 ha) and buy less cereals to compensate for their consumption deficit (21.49 Kg per individual against 32.21 Kg).