Burkina Faso is one of the three targeted countries in Africa that will benefit from the FARMAF project and the partners who will implementing the project in this country are the Confederation Paysanne du Faso (CPF) and the International Centre de Research in Agricultural Development (CIRAD).

In Burkina Faso the agriculture sector accounts for 90% of the labour force and this is the primary occupation of the rural population, who represent 75% of the overall population. Farm sizes range from 1 to 2 hectares, and almost 90% of land under cultivation in Burkina Faso is utilised in producing cereals (rice, maize, millet and sorghum).

There is a need to scale-up existing inventory credit (warrantage) systems, which are currently exclusively targeted at smallholder farmers, into a more commercially sustainable WRS to particularly support trade in staple grains in the domestic and regional markets. However, government interventions in output markets appear to be a major constraint.

Agricultural insurance systems are not well developed in Burkina Faso, partly because of a lack of private sector interest and the high level of natural risks in the area.

The objective of the Strategic action plan of the FARMAF project in Burkina Faso:

• Promote the access of agricultural producers to agricultural risk management private tools, including Warrantage, the index insurance and the market information systems. Target producers are family farmers from the member groups of CPF.
• Work to improve the effectiveness of these tools by the production and sharing of knowledge based on on-going experiences.
• Assess the impact of these tools on the behaviour of producers.