*Observing pastoralism through Fulani leaders:* An important aspect of pastoralism, namely, social networking and conflict resolution, was concealed in the everyday lives of Fulani leaders and could only be detected once I became more involved in their daily interactions. I regularly spent time with UCOPER leaders, as well as, some local representatives of GPERs, especially those of Fana-Peulh, Wara, Bagou and Wesseke. With the latter, I was able to see how Fulani herders complained about crop farmers and how conflicts were amicably settled at the local level. But when conflict resolution failed at the village level, or when the protagonist did not want to handle the problem with local leaders, the situation was transferred directly to the ANOPER president. The latter is called the "supreme commander" of the Fulani and his residence could be likened to a "Court".  I first made friends with his eldest son, Seydou, who was one of the program facilitators of his father-led association. Through my regular visits with Seydou, I became closer to his father, with whom I spent several occasions talking informally about Fulani problems. I had the opportunity to interview his visitors and understand their discussion points. I also got to see how Fulani herders regularly filed their complaints and the responses they received from the president. I sometimes witnessed the many phone calls he received from Fulani pastoralists and other stakeholders on specific issues and actively followed the different arrangements that were made. Certain types of calls made him angry and my presence was an opportune moment for discussion between the two of us, with him seeking someone to confide in and me hungry for data for my analysis.73 I witnessed firsthand the mediation of two "small conflicts", one was between a herder and a farmer on crop damage and the other was between two Fulani families on embezzlement.74 Other conflicts involving bloodshed were directly transferred to the police and taken over by the Legal Adviser of ANOPER. Without ever having had the opportunity to follow them, I sometimes came upon Fulani leaders who had been quickly mobilized to visit conflict hotbeds in other districts and provinces of the country. I often found myself in their wake to follow up the various comments and access the reports.

*Observing pastoralism in markets:* I observed the pastoralism of Gogounou in two kinds of markets: the weekly miscellaneous product market and the self-managed livestock market (MBA). On three occasions, I made short visits of one to two hours, to the regular market of Gogounou, and visited the markets in the villages of, for

73 Thus, the annoying phone calls received by the Fulani leader provided me with unexpected data such as the people with whom he communicated in Fulfulde and the topics of their talks. This allowed me to have new informants, new investigative sites and new themes/sub-themes of discussion. The "irritating intrusion" of mobile phones in interpersonal communicative relationships (Pelckmans, 2009: 32), became advantageous in my ethnographic study. The mobile phone served, at times, as a "digital research assistant" *(ibid).*

74 It was a marriage situation in which a young Fulani had paid the bride price for a Fulani girl who was later secretly given in marriage to someone else. The victim and his parents had taken action before the president of ANOPER.

example, Boro, Gounarou, Diadia, Sori, Bagou and Wara twice. I intended to see what the Fulani did in these markets. I saw the Fulani talk with kinsmen and friends. Some paraded into kiosks to charge the batteries of their mobile phones, buy recharge cards, mobile device accessories, electrical appliances or special music files. Others were eager to acquire agricultural implements, pesticides, motorbikes and accessories. Fulani pastoralists were also among buyers of drinks (coffee, alcoholic beverages, soft drinks), electronic equipment (video CD, DVD player, TV sets and alike) and building materials (corrugated roof iron, cement, paint, to name but a few). I often saw women strolling around the market stalls that displayed cooking utensils, beauty accessories or sometimes goods for sale (milk, cheese, craft products, etc.). I was able to get an in-depth picture of what the Fulani society in northern Benin had become and a clear understanding of the openness of the Fulani to "modernity". In addition to my explorations of public markets, I also spent many long days (six to nine hours) observing the autonomous cattle market (MBA75) of Gogounou. I focused mainly on the market organization, the origins of animals, the trading practices and other aspects, which I will not be detailing in this document.76 While observing the processes through which an animal is sold and the behavior of different actors involved, I also took note of the immediate use made by some Fulani herders of their income after the sale of an animal. Some bought, for instance, motorbikes, cell phones, small ruminants, veterinary supplies or animal feed from vendors already available in the marketplace. Agricultural implements and pesticides, often exhibited at the livestock market, were also part of the products that attracted the Fulani pastoralists. I realised the importance of the market for Fulani herders with the overall transformation of pastoralism in the region. Participant observation was at the core of my field approach and it went hand-in-hand with interviews with various informants involved in my study. I will now give my readers an overview of the interviews.

### Individual interviews

The second technique for collecting ethnographic data were the interviews I carried out alongside my observations. Both were complementary in terms of providing access to further information while avoiding misinterpretations. I focused a lot on biographical narratives about crop farming and pastoral practices and their interrelated dynamics in Gogounou. My objective was to allow local actors to spontaneously relate how they have experienced certain life processes and their own life (cf. Apitzsch and Siouti, 2007: 7ff.). I prompted Fulani pastoralists to describe how their life and activity had evolved over time. From their life histories, which were digitally recorded, I noted specific factors or benchmark moments that had marked their lives

75 Marché à Bétail Autogéré (MBA)

76 Some details on the self-managed cattle market and the mini-dairy in Gogounou are not detailed in this document. I analyzed these as case studies in separate papers or a specific book addressing the technological innovations among Fulani in northern Benin.

and which required coping strategies. This same approach was also used with crop farmers who were asked to provide a clear picture of how their farming activities had evolved over time. This resulted in tracing production patterns, technological progress, land tenure trends and labor issues. All of the conversations were performed in the mother tongues of my interlocutors, and translated into French by my research assistant.

Another group of actors, with whom I could speak directly in French about specific issues, were Fulani leaders, extension workers and local and international partners. With Fulani leaders I had open-ended discussions on all of the pastoralists' problems, as well as, the management approach of the grassroots associations. I interviewed the leaders of the self-managed livestock market about the extent of pastoralist involvement in animal marketing. I asked extension workers questions on land use practices. I tried to gain a deeper view of the changes in land access, pasture and water availability and animal health care. The local foresters and the heads of the forest administration at the regional level provided me with extensive date that enabled me to grasp the economic and political dimensions of logging and grazing within forest and village lands in Gogounou. I addressed the farmer-herder conflicts with the Gogounou brigade commissioner, with the intention of understanding their evolution and their management. I conducted semi-structured interviews with agents of local NGOs and international donors listed above, to better understand their guiding logic, their support to pastoralist associations and their expectations. The real impacts of their interventions on herders were also assessed during these conversations. I also enjoyed having discussions with local government members about the extent of pastoralism in Gogounou as well as other issues regarding the political stances and the local development agenda. I ended up with a total of 164 individual interviews recorded during my fieldwork. The information received from individuals was reinforced by those from group discussions, as I will now present.

#### Focus group discussions

Twenty-one focus group discussions consisting of five to seventeen participants were organized, mainly with Fulani herders and Bariba farmers. The discussions with farmers in smaller groups of five to seven participants focussed mostly on specific technologies that somehow "revolutionized" farming practices. In the sessions on technologies, we addressed topics such as plow, draft ox, tractor, weed, herbicide, fertilizer, soil fertility and labor. Other sessions were devoted to local citizenship (autochthonous *versus* aliens), land tenure, logging and the sale of wood.

My group discussions in the cattle camps of Fulani herders were often more difficult to manage. There I preferred to carry out conversations in smaller groups, but this was often not possible because of the strong and rapid mobilization of Fulani. Even when I started with only four or five informants, the group often became larger with the addition of curious passers-by and visitors. Whenever I announced that I would hold a group discussion in the camps, it was often like a big ceremony where I was received as an authority on pastoralist issues and given a variety of meals. With great expectations, Fulani herders looked at me as a project officer who could potentially solve some of their worries. The advent of mobile communication technologies, especially mobile phones, played a great role in making Fulani mobilization easier. Further details on this technological change are provided in Chapter 7. The downside of discussions in large groups was that they often became less interactive, particulary when some elders and leaders came to dominate the discussions. I later tried to avoid this by not announcing group discussions.77

Despite the enthusiasm of the majority of herders to participate in such discussions, I also faced the disappointment of some who were tired of always being investigated by a myriad of researchers without any immediate impact on their living conditions. However, my meetings with the Fulani herders generally favored interactions that enabled access to in-depth information on different items. We deeply examined some topics such as *lekki fuɗɗo* (herbicide), *kiisoowel* (chainsaw), *teetere leydi* (land grabbing), *buditol leɗɗe* (woodcutting), *banjibanji* (logging), *guyka na'i* (livestock rustling), *potabu* (cell phone), *luumo* (market).

Finally, I organised two group discussions with the members of the technical unit of forest management in Zougou-Pantrossi. Two foresters, a tracker and two members of the local forest management committee (CTAF) were involved. In French, we discussed the "Trois-Rivières" forest, giving emphasis to its current state and the conditions for accessing it by socio-professional groups (crop farmers, pastoralists, etc.). The issues of logging and conflict were also covered. The information on logging practices was further deepened during a discussion with a group of three woodcutters I had the opportunity to meet resting under a neem tree in Zougou-Pantrossi village. While studying pastoralism through the practices of actors, I also realized that major changes had occurred in terms of the use of various forage species. It was then necessary to conduct a short ethnobotanical study to be presented in the next section.

### Ethnobotanical investigation

The interest of anthropologists in plant biology is well established. This is in fact why Cotton (1997) in his edited volume *Ethnobotany: principles and applications* targeted them in a bid to shift them to modern ethnobotany. He also showed that the success of an ethnobotanical study has to do with its multidisciplinary approach where ethnographer and plant taxonomist complement each other (Cotton, 1997: 126). I tried to follow this principle, even though I was not directly supported by a plant specialist during data collection. My study had initially no botanical aim. However, it became important during my fieldwork to collect and identify some plant species useful in pastoralism as currently practiced in Gogounou. My ethnobotanical study aimed at knowing the ancient and newly-used species by the Fulani pastoralists, and

77 All this could be seen as one of the shaping influences of mobile phone on anthropological research. Other aspects are found in Pelckmans (2009).

some endangered, extinct or invasive species. This ethnobotanical investigation was fully integrated into my field approach and was not carried out separately. It was not really a botanical "collection" as proposed by Martin (1995: 29f.), but a study based on anthropological methods as described below.

During individual and group interviews, Fulani herders regularly referred to the degradation or the loss of plant and fodder species that were typically used by animals. Similarly, they complained that some invasive species were more frequently found in poorer local rangelands and negatively impacted livestock. It was also common to hear some herders rejoicing that their cattle herds increasingly fed on plant species that had no use for them in the past. When various ligneous or herbaceous plant species were named during the interviews, they were systematically recorded and their Fulfulde names written down. Other questions like the location of such species, the link with pastoralism, the state of availability, the impact on animals, the alternative feedstuffs, etc., were also asked to the interviewees. More than an open-ended investigation, this "freelisting" (Quinlan, 2005; Bernard, 2006: 301ff.) allowed me to understand how the availability of certain plant species was strongly linked to being Fulani. The list proposed here is not to catalog the richness of the biological diversity of Gogounou, or exaggerate the loss. It is to simply show how the Fulani herders have found innovative ways to train their animals to get used to some species that are now more available than those they once depended on, but which have become less available.

When the Fulfulde names of plants were recorded with Fulani herders and samples collected, I personally looked for the scientific names. The *Flora of Benin* (De Souza, 2008) was used to identify the majority of the species. However, some species of which Fulfulde names were confusing and, those without scientific names available in the flora book, were identified by a Fulani botanist, Yacoubou Boni, also a program officer at APIDEV-NGO in Parakou. This taxonomist also confirmed and corrected the names of some plant species initially identified in De Souza's flora book. Once the plants were identified and their scientific names known, I cross-checked the Fulfulde names with those I had received from my research assistants in order to replace any improvised Fulfulde names with authentic ones. This cross-checking of Fulfulde plant names was carried out with the support of Hibirou Souagou, a Gogounou native and Fulfulde literacy teacher at DERANA-NGO in Parakou.

Some plant species that are subject to human pressure (cultivation, logging and pastoralism) were listed by forest specialists. My key informants were the foresters of the technical unit of forest management (CTAF) of Zougou-Pantrossi, the Head of the regional forest office of Kandi and the Deputy-Head of the departmental forest administration of Parakou. Their information was also cross-checked with those in the forest management plans of the two state forests of Gogounou (MEPN, 2010a; 2010b). When studying humans and plants, I also took advantage of the remote sensing technologies and applied them to my research, as it appears hereinafter.

### GIS and spatial data analysis

The use of geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial data analysis (SDA) has grown in social science research in recent decades. From a critical social theory perspective, some scholars have assumed that mapping and spatial analysis will transform social sciences, as did the statistical modeling approaches decades earlier (Harris and Weiner, 1996; Goodchild and Janelle, 2004). Anthropologists, like other social scientists, who have an unbridled passion for understanding the social and even physical environment in order to analyze the link with the behavior of social actors, have no more qualms about using GIS and related technologies (Okabe, 2006; Parker and Asencio, 2009).

Throughout an edited volume by Aldenderfer and Maschner (1996), *Anthropology, Space, and Geographic Information Systems*, several studies in America, Europe and Africa demonstrate the utility of GIS in analyzing complex interactions involving various ecological, political-economic and socio-cultural forces. In the article by Stonich (1996: 78ff.), for example, it appears that the use of informant interviews in anthropological inquiry and mapping through remotely sensed images can better educate on issues of land ownership and shifts in agricultural systems. Thus, reconciling small-scale and individual information and large-scale phenomena becomes important to explain a locally based problem. Without using sophisticated and complex manipulations of SDA and GIS tools, I used these methods in my research at three levels:

First, remotely sensed images were used for land use and land cover analysis. This consisted of inventories of ecological entities over time in order to value the changes. It was done using Landsat satellite imagery and aerial photographs acquired from the Center for National Remote Sensing and Forest Cover Monitoring (CENATEL78) in Cotonou. Three years were considered (1982, 2002 and 2012) to compare the land cover dynamics over thirty years divided into two periods. The first period runs from 1982 to 2002 and the second one from 2002 to 2012. The purpose of this temporal subdivision was to better understand when the changes in land use and land cover were more significant. This enabled deduction of its influence on local pastoralism. I was supported by a specialist of CENATEL, Abou Adam, for processing and analyzing the spatial data on Gogounou. ArcGIS software was used and statistics on stable, regressing and progressing spatial units were generated.

Second, GIS was used for mapping the investigation sites (Figure 5.1). My goal was to cover a large part of Gogounou to understand the diversity in perceptions and strategies of Fulani herders. That is why all the camps and places where interviews were conducted were systematically geo-referenced with a handheld GPS (GPSMAP 62s). I personally extracted the points with MapSource software and constituted a database in Excel. This database was then transferred to a specialist cartographer, Rufin Aïssan, who supported me in drawing up my location maps. This was made

78 Centre National de Télédétection et de Suivi Ecologique.

Figure 5.1: Investigation sites in Gogounou District

possible by placing the collected points on the topographic map background of the National Geographic Institute (IGN79) of Benin through ArcGIS.

Third, GIS results were drawn upon for the presentation of the main destinations of Fulani emigrants. A list of various new destinations of the Fulani pastoralists of Gogounou was established from the individual and group interviews. A migration map was drawn up (cf. Chapter 7). I first designed a model as a Word file and the genuine map was made later in ArcGIS with support from the cartographer, Abou Adam.

### Photography and videography

I had taken plenty of photos (about 3,800 items) and short videos (about 20 items) to show different real-life settings. These materials provide interesting views on farming activities, such as, land preparation, plowing, sowing, use of herbicide, residue burning and fire putting options. They also demonstrate livestock feeding and watering activities, involving daily mobility, long-range transhumance, and herds' grouping camps during dry season. Some technologies (forage cultivation, forage storage, ligneous forage conservation) were also captured in photo. Pictures were taken of the relics of homesteads of some Fulani herders who had permanently left

79 Institut Géographique National.

Gogounou. The diversity of transport technologies is also shown through images. The self-managed livestock-marketing model is also covered, including images of the actors involved, market settings and selling dynamics. Finally, there are illustrations of pastoralist association meetings, etc.

### Documentary research

The literature was collected and analyzed throughout my research stay in Benin. My research material dealt mainly with ecology, pastoralism, farming, market, Fulani associations, conflicts and technologies. The quantitative databases obtained were used to design diagrams inserted in the document to justify various trends (education, rainfall, crop production, livestock marketing, etc.). The qualitative data were integrated directly into my argument through content analysis. The sources of literature found in my bibliography were many.

*Pastoralist associations:* I collected many reports on specific activity, study and conflict with the three Fulani associations based in Gogounou (ANOPER, UDOP-ER B/A and UCOPER Gogounou). Some communication slides and videos were also accessed. The livestock market managing committee (ALGMB80) provided me with a database on livestock marketing from 2003 to 2013. This provided the different trends in livestock sales and the market's contribution to the Fulani association budget, as well as, to that of the Gogounou authorities.

*Local partners:* I accessed databases from the extension services (CARDER Borgou/Alibori and SCDA Gogounou) on cultivated areas, production volumes and annual crop yields from 1996 to 2013. The SCDA Gogounou also provided me with a database of water resources in Gogounou used by pastoralists. I was able to access sequenced data on rainfall in parts of the district, but these data were replaced in my analysis by more complete data I got from the regional station of ASECNA in Kandi. The local NGOs (APIDEV and APIC) also contributed to my literature search. I was able to collect some reports on pastoralism. The Gogounou Municipality through its service of economic and trading affairs gave me an additional database on the contribution of livestock markets in the municipal budget. The local office of environment and nature protection (SCEPN81) granted me with copies of the participatory management plans of the two state forests of Gogounou. I obtained a database on the evolution of children's schooling from 2004 to 2014 from the local school board of Gogounou. The University programs like SIMPROMEAT-Benin (Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Abomey-Calavi) and NICHE-Benin (Faculty of Agronomy, University of Parakou) gave me access to diagnostic reports on pastoralism in Gogounou.

*International partners:* The technical and financial partners such as SNV Parakou, DDC/UGP Parakou, GIZ/ZFD Parakou and FAO Cotonou, supplied me with vari-

80 Association Locale de Gestion du Marché à Bétail Autogéré de Gogounou.

81 Section Communale de l'Environnement et de la Protection de la Nature.

ous documents. These are typically activity reports, study reports, partnership agreements, in connection with the promotion of the pastoral sector.

*Other sources of documentation:* During my fieldwork, I made documentary searches in three other documentation centers. I was able to access the INSAE82 (National Institute of Statistics and Economic Analysis) recent data on Gogounou population and specific statistics on Fulani herders in the region. I visited the documentation center of Kandi Municipality, as well as those of CARDER B/A in Parakou and the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries (MAEP83) in Cotonou. I was able to access general reports on pastoralism, agriculture, pesticides and livestock marketing. The livestock department of the MAEP in Cotonou provided me with annual reports from 2002 to 2012, and livestock statistical yearbooks from 2007 to 2011. I was able to access the private documentation of some students and specialists who worked on pastoralism in northern Benin in general and Gogounou in particular.

# **5.3 Summary on data collection and analysis**

During my long ethnographic stay of ten months, I collected a vast amount of research material to address the socio-technological changes among Fulani pastoralists in Gogounou. My strongly flexible multi-sited and multi-method approach, as detailed above, could also be seen as an "itinerant ethnography" as conceptualized and used by Schein (2000: 26), who captured the politics of ethnicity, gender and nationalism among Miao minority in China, through a roving approach. As in the case of the author, there were many things that I had not planned at the beginning, but which had become inescapable in the good understanding of pastoralism in Benin. I seized every available opportunity to collect useful data.

By drawing on multiple data sources, including informants, I could cross-check the data and avoid any one individual as becoming the single holder of all the knowledge about the Fulani community or Gogounou society in general. Similarly, no single technique was enough in itself to access an unquestionably "true" version of the information I had gathered. The cross-checking of sources and, to some extent methods, indeed, falls under what Olivier de Sardan (2008: 79f.) refers to as "common sense" in ethnography. This common sense approach liberated me from being a prisoner of single informants or sources since it allowed for me to seek out contrasting discourses, rather than inflexibly and unthinkingly search for "truthful" information. All of my recorded interviews and group discussions were transcribed with "F4 software" (version 3.1.0), codified and saved as Word files. I benefited from the support of my younger brother, Gildas Louis Djohy, an undergraduate in Geography, to do this tedious task. But having abundant material does not mean that the analysis is complete, for field data do not "speak for themselves" (Bernard, 2006: 503f.). They

82 Institut National de la Statistique et de l'Analyse Economique.

83 Ministère de l'Agriculture, de l'Elevage et de la Pêche.

must be given a meaning by the ethnographer himself, who is responsible for processing them, poring over them, sorting them out and producing an analysis *(ibid).* This is what I have tried to do. The generated texts were supported by the personal field notes and grouped under themes and sub-themes. This corpus of data was analyzed and used to feed my arguments throughout the document. Discourses, short descriptions, tables and charts were used for the production of scientific knowledge of an ethnographic kind. Despite these efforts, imperfections remain. I admit that some constraints stood in my path, and would have certainly influenced my research. The main limits of my field approach are presented below.

# **5.4 Constraints and limits of the research**

It would be very presumptuous of me to claim to have covered all aspects of pastoralism in Gogounou and in northern Benin. The analyses included throughout this document are based on information that I was able to gather from different sources available during my fieldwork. Some constraints of ethnic, linguistic and financial order may have induced some biases.

*Identity constraint:* My belonging to an ethnic group from southern Benin especially "Fon" may have unknowingly played against me to some extent. It was conspicuous that a real friendship was established between Fulani pastoralists and me. I spent time talking with many of them, who often told me that they had missed me during the days that I was away and could not visit them. I had daily encounters in which people begged me to visit and talk to them. I was even nicknamed *danirawo Fulɓe* or *pasijo Fulɓe.*84 Similarly, an utmost trust was established between Fulani leaders and me. Leaders were often stunned by the way in which I moved back and forth between farms, camps and forests studying pastoralism. They saw me differently from many students and consultants with whom they had worked in the past, and who preferred documenting data in the city. At some meetings to which many herders were invited, the ANOPER president commended my efforts. During a training workshop organized by SIMPROMEAT-Benin on forage cultivation, the ANOPER president, while showing me around, told the participants alternatively in Fulfulde and then in French: *"O wai like Pullo, o wai like horejo Fulɓe"*85.

If I was considered "Fulani", "Fulani friend" or "Fulani patron" by Fulani pastoralists and leaders, I was also as much for local farmers. I was very surprised one day when a Bariba opinion leader embraced me from afar, shouting *"Batonu, sunon bi gogu non"* 86. This image that the two opposing groups in the area had made of me,

84 "Friend of Fulani" or *pasijo* is synonymously used with *danirawo*, which means friend.

85 "He has become Fulani, he has even become the patron of the Fulani" (*horejo*, which means "authority", was sometimes use synonymously with *mawɗo* and *nyinijo*, which refer all to the Head of the Fulani).

86 "Bariba, son of the King of Gogounou", meaning "Bariba, prince of Gogounou".

each pulling me to his side, was a great factor in the collection of field data. However, this did not prevent some interlocutors from considering my true identity of *dakumejo* or *dahumegi.*87 respectively, in Fulfulde and Batonu languages. Two kinds of stereotypes have followed me throughout my stay in Gogounou. For some, I was considered as an intelligent young man to be doing doctoral studies, especially in the country of "white people". The visit of my "white supervisor"88 in Gogounou was tangible proof of my powerful network. Thus, I confirmed the intelligence and the capability known for a *dakumejo.* My friendship with some of my interlocutors and my presence in their homesteads were regularly imputed to them as improving and internationalizing their own network.

For other people from my research site, I was nothing other than a crafty and wicked guy to have travelled through all of southern Benin to arrive at Gogounou for research. For them, my research could have had a hidden agenda. I would be remiss not to provide a glimpse of the kind of experiences that I had in the field. For example, during the middle of an interview that I was having with the King of Gogounou on Gogounou's history and Fulani settlement, he suddenly turned to my assistant and asked him in Batonu: *"Madi wuninm boro wi una?"* 89 The latter replied: *"Dahume tem dina owee."* 90 And the King added: *"N'bam bosira dahume wi u ka sun*

*na mini, ma u wim tem deri ma?"* 91 And my assistant replied again: *"Si wi kasu mon*

87 These words, which refer broadly to the people of Dahomey (now Benin Republic), refer more particularly to the "Fon" people from Abomey (former capital of Dahomey kingdom); where I originally come from. For the boundary between "Dahomey" and "Fon", see Law (1986). Dahomey (or Daxome in Fon language) was one of the most powerful kingdoms in Africa between the seventeenth and the late nineteenth centuries. Its prominence was related to Abomey kings who had conquered several neighboring territories along the coast and in the farther interior (Heywood and Thornton, 2009: 88). Dahomey was a "scene of organized struggles for power, of political alliances and deals, of dynasties and successions, and of political manipulation of trade, especially the slave trade" and an "absolutist warrior state devoted to ancestor worship, was endlessly engaged in aggressive warfare" (Bailyn, 2009: 12). The stereotypes built on the natives of Dahomey for a long time, equate them with "trickery" and "wickedness", feeding a kind of hatred from other ethnic groups in the country. This legacy well used in political manipulations in the recent decades, makes it difficult for a Fon to be accepted by the other ethnic groups. For people of certain ethnic groups, the man of Abomey is simply a devil, an evil genius and should not be considered a human being (Agossou, 2001). These kinds of ethno-regionalist and tribalist stereotypes that exist in both North and South of Benin somehow feed the ethnic solidarity which is the preferred means of mobilizing the electorate in the struggle for power conquest and ruling *(ibid).*

88 My main German supervisor (Prof. Dr. Nikolaus Schareika) visited me during my fieldwork in Gogounou on 19–24 March 2014.

89 "Where does your friend come from?" This question, which meant, "What is the origin of your friend?" showed that the King was looking for more details about my true identity. Although I had already briefly presented myself to the King before the interview, I did not go into details about my origin. The answer of my assistant also confirms my interpretation.

90 "He comes from Dahomey" or, more literally, "Dahomey is his homeland".

91 "What is an Abomey native doing here leaving behind his own land?"

*naa yera so."* 92 When I realized that I was temporarily excluded from the discussion, I subtly asked my assistant to explain to me what was being said. When I understood that the discussion was about my ethnic background, I decided not to turn a deaf ear, but to talk about it and make the atmosphere more relaxed. I then explained to His Majesty that I was no longer just a "southerner", but my marriage with a Bariba woman had already made me a full member of this ethnic group. Very surprised that I was married to a Bariba woman, he smiled, and jokingly said: *"Nin bi wa ama su e mi! wi a ko kpin u behe dema ho kpo kpin onu gari dera sia."* 93 We all laughed and I was able to revive the interview. This dialogue, which seemed playful, finds its very sense in the Benin democratic context of ethnic cleavages and regionalist differences often sharpened in political manipulations (cf. Agossou, 2001). Like His Majesty, the Bariba King of Gogounou, other people from my field sites might have also stereotyped me in one way or another. This might not have completely nullified the difference that I had seriously tried to avoid between my informants and myself.

The fact that I was completing my study in Germany was also variously interpreted by the development agencies that were already supporting pastoralists in Benin. As I was told once by a worker of an international development agency in Parakou, the German development cooperation had invested very little in pastoralism in Benin in recent decades. Therefore, I might be, for the other international partners, a German spy assigned to explore the pastoralist sector in order to offer my funders ideas for future development projects. I felt as though I was sometimes mistaken as a competitor, even if the Fulani association leaders liked very much this form of competition between donors, through which they expand their financing networks, as I examine later on in Chapter 8.

*Linguistic constraint:* My inability to speak Fulfulde and Batonu languages hindered direct conversation with some interlocutors, especially pastoralists and crop farmers. I had used a trilingual research assistant, Aboubakar Amadou, who was more accustomed to censuses and more rapid consultations. The ethnographic study that I was doing was the first in his life. Everything seemed boring and redundant to him in the very beginning, despite our time agreeing on preparations. I felt his fatigue and impatience. Sometimes he wanted me to avoid repeating questions, to which we already had answers, and to move on to new issues that we had not yet discussed. Abou, as he was commonly called, preferred that I shorten our discussions so I could release him earlier. He wanted to pursue other economic and political opportunities. As a young independent undergraduate, he was faced with many selfsupporting issues. He even got married during my stay in Gogounou and his marital as well as financial charges increased. While the compensation94 that I gave him was

92 "He is seeking information related to animals".

93 "You even married my daughter! It is she who will betray our tradition (or our secrets)".

94 I was paying Abou, 80,000 CFA francs (US\$ 160) per month. This monthly pay corresponded to slightly less than twice the monthly salary of a worker in Benin (all categories combined). The minimum wage rate per month gross is 31,652 CFA francs (US\$ 63). The median net hourly wage of

sufficient for this kind of work, it did not make up for his other responsibilities. I was forced to give him time to farm or attend political meetings for which he had at least received a per diem.

Despite the Abou's absences and the regular readjustments induced in my work schedule, the strong friendship that developed between us over time made it easy to catch up on lost time. Abou and I cooked and ate together, and we shared the same bed in a flat that I had rented in Gogounou. This was possible since his wife worked in Kandi and returned to Gogounou only on the weekends. We reached the point of also sharing confidential matters with each other. This helped limit the manipulations he was often susceptible to *vis-à-vis* his "friend researcher". My trustworthy relationship with Abou was much inspired by the experience of Sascha Kesseler (a German doctoral researcher) and Lucien Tentaga (a Beninese research assistant), who used their commonalities and differences as opportunities to approach the field (Kesseler and Tentaga, 2013). The behavior of some actors and the manipulation of my research assistant by some players were important clues that helped me to understand many issues related to the situation of pastoralism in Gogounou. Therefore, we were able to reduce the biases on the data and their interpretation.

Another challenge in using young Fulani as research assistants was to be able to minimise their politically motivated actions during the period of fieldwork. Fulani youth were prepared to take advantage of my status as well as my materials in order to feed their local political clientage. The situation was worse during my time in the field when several elections (local, municipal and legislative) were imminent in Benin. The young educated Fulani are often courted by many politicians who seek to use them to win the electorate of Fulani pastoralists, or position them on lists of political parties in some areas to weaken their political enemies. I have had different experiences during my two data collection phases. With Sanda Aboubakar, whom I used as interpreter during my exploratory research, my status as a doctoral student, my coming from Germany and my field materials (recorder, camera, GPS) were all useful to him. He claimed that he wanted to solve the problems of the Fulani and develop his region. His ambition to run in the local elections in the region of Zougou-Pantrossi and his desire to meet my requirements often placed him in ambiguous and uncomfortable positions.

This socio-political positioning of research auxiliaries between two worlds (society and researcher) is often seen in anthropology as important for data collection and analysis. The research assistants are active rather than passive, having their agency and pursuing their own agenda (Powdermaker, 1966; Lather, 1988; Tomaselli *et al.* 2008; Kesseler and Tentaga, 2013). After my experience with Sanda, I sought to limit the biases by seeking an assistant outside Gogounou, but my efforts in this

a worker in Benin (all categories combined) is 214 CFA francs; and the usual average working week is 57 hours in 5.8 days (cf. Besamusca *et al.* 2013).

regard were unsuccessful.95 I ended up recruiting Abou for the long-term fieldwork, but my experience with him had revealed other forms of positioning of the research assistant towards his employer-researcher and his own society.

Abou, who is one of the school-educated young Fulani of his village (Boro), had a great influence locally. He knew exactly how to mobilize supporters and was the kind of henchman liked by politicians. My research assistant was often courted by many politicians and would perform other plans during our investigation time. Some Fulani leaders, who also had ambitions to run in the municipal and parliamentary elections, often asked him to make contacts in the camps in order to make the upcoming campaigns more successful. He would regularly list Fulani camps and make key contacts to help improve the campaign strategies of some politicians (including some Fulani leaders) to win the elections.

Six months after my return to Germany, Abou was positioned on the list of the ruling political alliance in Benin to enter the Gogounou Municipal Council, but he did not succeed. This overview of young educated Fulani in Gogounou, who were not only political brokers in the making, but research assistants, precedes my analysis on development brokerage in which Fulani intellectuals were involved in transforming and modernizing pastoralism and pastoralists. Researchers must care about providing fair remuneration and developing flexible field approach, when using the services of these young Fulani that also offer another face of the transformation underway in pastoral areas in northern Benin.

*Financial constraint:* My fieldwork benefited from limited funding, but also restricted my analysis to several local cases. A larger sample and more quantitative data for statistical purposes would have been useful for studying certain phenomena (e.g. tree cutting, involvement of youth in the informal marketing of pesticides, involvement of officials in farming, herbicide use for land control, etc.). However, this was not possible for logistical reasons and prevented the extension of the study to the district of Malanville as originally planned. To do this, I would have required more research assistants and thus more financial means to complete the investigation. This constraint may have induced some methodological bias and thus influenced the interpretation of some data. It can sometimes seem a bit exaggerated in my analysis to generalize certain observed phenomena. However, I was able to limit this weakness in two ways. First, I visited other districts like Kandi, Bembéréké, N'Dali and Nikki where I was able to carry out some direct observations and converse with some local people on what was happening in those regions about the pastoralism. Second, I launched a debate on the online discussion forum "AgriProFocus Benin"96 about informal marketing and the abundant use of herbicides in northern Benin and their

95 Sir Amadou Bani Yero from Bembéréké District, with whom I had agreed to work several months prior to my arrival, finally withdrew to find a job in southern Benin.

96 AgriProFocus is an online platform where farmer organizations, NGOs workers, researchers and agricultural entrepreneurs in thirteen countries meet and debate on all issues related to agro-pastoral family farms. I used the section on Benin (AgriProFocus Benin) to launch the discussion on herbicide use in connection with pastoralism in northern Benin. I launched the discussion on 20 March 2015

implications for pastoralism. The comments and cases raised by the participants on this internet-based consultation97 corroborated my arguments in this document. In sum, the three aforementioned constraints have influenced my study. However, my knowledge of the area since 2008 and my strong integration into the local communities enabled me to develop strategies to avoid or mitigate any negative effects on my data and analysis.

# **5.5 Conclusion**

Throughout this chapter, I have presented my itinerant field approach and the different techniques used to collect and analyze my data. I have also outlined several constraints that could be linked to potential biases in the arguments made in this document. Finally, I have explained the strategies that I used to reduce those biases.

In the chapters that follow, I will present the main findings of my ethnographic experience. I begin by showing the "crisis" of pastoralism through the land control and the dwindling of livestock feed resources in Gogounou (Chapter 6). I will then present how individual pastoralists address the shortage of resources (Chapter 7) and I will finalize my arguments by examining the strategies used by the pastoralist associations and their leaders to find solutions to the problems of pastoralists (Chapter 8).

and closed it on 29 March 2015, after successful interventions from five participants. For details, see: http://agriprofocus.com/search?keyword=Georges+Djohy (last accessed 10/12/17).

97 The internet (and other communication technologies) is one of the many opportunities available to anthropologists nowadays. For other possibilities, see Bernard (2006: 254ff.).

# **6 Being pastoralists in a globalized world** Technological revolution, land use change and social exclusion in Gogounou

This chapter presents and analyzes the land use situation in Gogounou District over the past three decades. The different pathways for economic development, food security and sustainable natural resource management by the Government have some negative influences on pastoralism, especially in terms of land and access to resources. The state development policies supported by various other local, national and international actors have ultimately enabled crop farmers to consolidate their power over land at the expense of Fulani pastoralists. Cash cropping, logging, tree planting and land individualization are all powerful weapons in the hands of crop farming communities, which use them to better control land. There was a form of rangeland acquisition through various forms of territorialization detrimental to Fulani pastoralists who face huge difficulties in accessing pasture. Here, I argue that technologies promoted within the framework of rural development policies create imbalances in power relations between actors, and fuel multidimensional processes of territorialization, resulting in rangeland reduction. In the next section, I begin by mapping the land cover and land use in Gogounou during the last three decades. I will then present the socio-economic and political dynamics that explain the dwindling of pastoral resources through the use of remote sensing technologies.

# **6.1 Land use and land cover change in Gogounou from 1982 to 2012**

The GIS-based spatial diachronic analysis of land use and land cover change in Gogounou (Figure 6.1) shows a subtle regression of open forests and wooded savannahs. From 85,060 ha in 1982, they have deteriorated by 0.53% and 1.11%, and were respectively, 82,430 ha in 2002 and 76,994 ha 2012. Trees and shrubs savannahs have decreased from 337,827 ha in 1982 to 236,392 ha in 2002 and to 197,893 ha in 2012. The mosaics of croplands and fallow lands have increased altogether from 58,754 ha in 1982 to 160,188 ha in 2002 (20.54%) and to 199,364 ha in 2012 (7.94%). The built-up area, which was 297 ha in 1982, also increased over time. It became 1012 ha in 2002 and then 4472 ha in 2012 with, respectively, 0.14% and 0.71% as growth rates. The plantations covered a total area of 405 ha in 1982; but they increased respectively by 0.39% and 0.27% during the two subperiods. Their area became 2345 ha in 2002 and increased to 3672 ha in 2012. In summary, the overall pattern of change in Gogounou has been the expansion of the various spatial units. Residential spaces, crop areas, grasslands and plantation areas have undergone significant change over the period concerned (Table 6.1).

Figure 6.1: Land use and land cover changes in Gogounou (1982–2012) / part 1

Figure 6.1: Land use and land cover changes in Gogounou (1982–2012) / part 2

Table 6.1: Area change through land use in Gogounou (1982–2012)

Figure 6.2: Distribution of land cover patterns in Gogounou (1982–2012)

The area of Gogounou has experienced growth in agricultural settlement. There was a dramatic increase in the amount of land used for cropping and fallowing. This expansion occurred through a continuous clearance of the savannah, which has decreased almost in the same proportion. Part of the destroyed trees and shrubs savannah was reverted into plantations, as it appears more conspicuously in Figure 6.2.

# **6.2 The hidden political ecology of rangeland reduction in Gogounou**

After a technical or geospatial understanding of land use and land cover changes in Gogounou in recent decades, it is now important to link people to the pixels.98 I will begin by presenting the demographic changes in Gogounou. The government policies and their implications at the local level will then be discussed, as well as the reinterpretations made by local actors who have access to various technologies.

Local population growth in Gogounou

Population growth is among one of the leading factors often indexed in most analyses of ecological dynamics in relation to pastoralism (cf. Hardin, 1968; Ostrom, 1990). When looking at the local trend, the population of Gogounou District has more than quadrupled in thirty years (Table 6.2). The total number of inhabitants, which was 27,830 during the first general population census of 1979 (RGPH991), increased to 117,793 according to preliminary results from the fourth census in 2013 (INSAE, 2013a: 4). The most recent growth rate of the local population was 3.50%, practically equivalent to that of the whole country over the same period (2002–2013). The Gogounou population has, however, increased to a lesser extent than in other districts in the same region, since the growth rate of Alibori Province was 4.64% between 2002 and 2013. This demographic explosion implies an increasing land demand for both settlement and farming. It is an undoubted reality, but not enough to explain alone the whole observed spatial occupation trend. The disappearance of rangelands in Gogounou District is more easily understood when looking closely at the various rural economies in place: the cotton economy, the grain economy, the wood economy and, finally, the growing plantation economy. I will now turn to the government agricultural policies, the local crop economies and the power relations that undermine the pastoral practices in Gogounou.

98 "People and pixels" is the main heading of a book by Liverman *et al.* (1998) to link remote sensing and social science. "People" refers to the socio-political landscape and "pixels" to the image-based geospatial technologies. I am referring here to the idea of merging remote sensing and socio-anthropological analysis. As McCusker and Weiner (2003) put it, the remotely sensed images are representations not only of nature but also of hidden socio-political realities (hidden political ecologies), and more social analysis is needed to better explain the uncovered underlying social processes.

99 Recensement Général de la Population et de l'Habitation.

Table 6.2: Demographic change in Gogounou (1979–2013)100

Agricultural mechanization and territorialization by farm extensification

As stated by Bryant and Bailey (1997: 57) regarding other Third World countries, the Republic of Benin is also part of the smaller and economically vulnerable countries due to its heavy dependence on export of few products. The cotton sector remains the biggest contributor to the national economy, which fluctuates according to the rhythm of production during the annual agricultural campaign. It is the basis of the agro-industry, accounting for about 60% of local industry. In 2009, the cotton sector contributed 13% to the GDP in terms of value added. The cotton production also contributed 45% to the domestic income (taxes and treasury) and was the primary source of income for Benin (MEF, 2010). Given its importance, priority is always given to the cotton sector. Nothing prevents cotton production and nobody can afford to destroy a cotton field because of a land dispute, animal grazing or forest conservation. In the political discourse, cotton farmers deserve special attention from the Government, since their commodity is source of foreign currency for the country and contributes to the growth of the national economy. The President of the Republic himself and various Ministers of his Government campaign each year across the country, moving from one district to another within the northern cotton basin to motivate farmers to increase their cotton acreages.

In addition to cotton, which occupies this privileged place in economic growth and development efforts, recent upsurges in agricultural diversification and food sovereignty of African nations have also fueled the promotion of grains and perennial crops, which have become very important in Benin's agricultural policy (cf. PSRSA/ MAEP, 2011).

100 Source: Adapted from INSAE (2013a: 4).

### *Farm machinery appropriation and land issues*

The Government of Benin began to actively promote the mechanization of agriculture in 2006. The National Council for Agricultural Mechanization (CNMA101) and the Agency for Agricultural Mechanization Development (ADMA102) were created for this purpose (PSRSA/MAEP, 2011: 31). Individual farmers who could not afford farm machinery grouped themselves into Cooperatives for Farm Machinery Use (CUMAs103). The CUMA model was designed to promote a shared mechanization by a group of farmers who could access farm machinery with greatly reduced individual usage costs and by sharing the maintenance charges. This also reduces their reliance on costly imported tractor services, improves their access to knowledge and information and increases their bargaining power with market actors and decisionmakers (CTA, 2011; Balse *et al.* 2015a; 2015b). More practically, accessing farm machineries through a CUMA enables a farmer to plow one hectare of land in only four hours rather than four days, as required by draft power, or eight to ten days by hoeing (CUMA-Benin, 2010).

The CUMAs were initiated in 1995 in Borgou-Alibori region by the French Farmers and International Development (AFDI104) and the Departmental Federation of CUMA Dordogne in France105. It was part of a North-South transfer of technology intended to improve the performance of small family farms. The first experience was made in Bembéréké District (about 65 km from Gogounou) through the Program for Professionalization of Agriculture in Benin (PPAB106) endowed with funding from the French Development Agency (AFD107). A CUMA is composed of about 10 members; and equipped with a 30–60/70hp tractor, a plow and a 3-ton trailer (Balse *et al.* 2015a: 6; Balse *et al.* 2015b: 6), requiring a total budget of 10 million CFA francs. Benin Government chose the CUMA model as key element to make the country an "agricultural power". This vision was clearly defined in different policy documents such as the Document of National Strategy for Agricultural Mechanization (DSNMA108) in 2005 and the Strategic Plan for Agricultural Sector Development (PSRSA109) in 2006 (PSRSA/MAEP, 2011). This led in 2007 to the setting up of the Program for the Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization (PPMA110). About 300 tractors were distributed throughout the country as part of this program. The beneficiaries were individual farmers, farmer groups, agricultural education centers

101 Conseil National de Mécanisation Agricole.

102 Agence de Développement de la Mécanisation Agricole.

103 Coopérative d'Utilisation de Matériels Agricoles.

104 Agriculteurs Français et Développement International.

105 Fédération Départementale des CUMA Dordogne (France).

106 Programme de Professionnalisation de l'Agriculture Béninoise.

107 Agence Française de Développement.

108 Document de la Stratégie Nationale de Mécanisation Agricole.

109 Plan Stratégique de Relance du Secteur Agricole.

110 Programme de Promotion de la Mécanisation Agricole.

Photo 6.1: Tractor use in crop farming in Gogounou

and various youth groups enrolled through the Special Program for Youth Integration in Agriculture (PSIJA111) (Saizonou, 2009). The tractors are subsidized by 50% of the real price and the payment is spread over four years. A 60hp tractor is sold to the CUMAs for 6 million CFA francs and a 30hp tractor for 4.5 million CFA francs. The first portion of 20% is payable when collecting the machines, 30% in each of the second and third years, and, finally, 20% in the fourth year *(ibid).*

The number of CUMAs has increased considerably over time across the country. There were about 109 active CUMAs in the Borgou-Alibori Region in 2010, being referred to as the Regional Union of CUMAs in Borgou and Alibori Provinces (UR-CUMA B/A112). The URCUMA Borgou-Alibori mobilized about 953 farmers who cultivated altogether 10,112 ha in 2010 (CUMA-Benin, 2015). The other regions of the country also made progress in this way and the rate of agricultural mechanization was estimated at 17% in 2010, compared to 1% in 2006 (Agro-Benin, 2011). The process of machine exchange between CUMAs, the individual tractor acquisition and the availability of tractor service delivery promoted the integration of tractors in agricultural practices in various parts of Benin. This enabled an increase in the cultivated areas in some regions (Saizonou, 2009; Gibigaye *et al.* 2010, Balse *et al.* 2015a; 2015b). Balse *et al.* (2015b) found that the members of CUMAs in Benin increased

111 Programme Spécial d'Insertion des Jeunes dans l'Agriculture.

112 Union Régionale des CUMAs du Borgou-Alibori.

their crop areas 3.5 fold on average, 1.2 fold minimum and 6.4 fold maximum. In an information sheet disseminated in 2014 by the network of CUMAs in Benin, the agricultural performance of the CUMAs and their members was well explained:

The CUMA: a tool for sustainable development of Benin agriculture The CUMAs enabled: An increase in area cultivated by their members An increase in yields through better-quality plowing An increase in farmers' incomes An increase in school enrolment of children Investments within agricultural holdings An overall improvement of the living conditions of the CUMA member farmers and their families. (CUMA-Benin, 2014)113

The district of Gogounou did not remain on the sidelines of such agricultural "modernization" (Photo 6.1). Aside from the individually acquired tractors, and those of farmer cooperatives, the local authority invested in three tractors for service delivery. By 7 April 2014, fifteen CUMAs had been created in Gogounou and nine of them were equipped by the PPMA114. These local machines were supplemented by other tractors from neighboring districts and countries offering plow services within Borgou and Alibori Provinces, and, more specifically, in Gogounou. Another important aspect of this agricultural modernization policy is the Program for Youth Integration in Agriculture, which recruits and installs youth groups in different upland and lowland areas granted by the district authorities. In Gogounou, two groups involving about 115 young farmers occupy about 170 ha of land for agriculture.115 Their holdings are dedicated to maize and rice production. This kind of free installation of young people on lands they do not own, inevitably leads to strong dynamics around arable and pastoral areas (cf. Amoussou and Sagbohan, 2010: 11f.).116

113 I have translated it from its original French version.

114 At least 19 farms in Gogounou received machinery through the PPMA (cf. Ligan-Topanou *et al.* 2015).

115 There is a group of 100 youths in Bagou village for rice production on 160 hectares, and a group of fifteen youths who produce maize in Dougoulaye village on ten hectares of land (TSAGRN, SCDA-Gogounou, 19/08/15).

116 The authors have shown that the granting of land by the State through these kinds of programs, in collaboration with decentralized authorities, to anyone with the ability and willingness to farm, has led to unprecedented territorial dynamics over land. In the Niger valley in Malanville District, for example, more than 9,000 youths (30% women) benefited from this agricultural integration initiative (Amoussou and Sagbohan, 2010: 12).

### *Labor shortage and territorialization by tractor*

The adoption of agricultural machinery has been accompanied by serious labor challenges. It has the merit of reducing child labor, which was commonly involved in tedious operations such as plowing with hoes and draft animals. However, it generates a large labor deficit due to the extensive rather than intensive strategy that governs its use by local farmers (Balse *et al.* 2015a; 2015b). The savings in time and labor through tractor plowing – plowing being almost the only farm activity performed by a tractor – are constantly reinvested by farmers who continually increase their crop areas. Additional manpower is then necessary to cover other farm operations and achieve the objective of good agricultural performance. For CUMA members, for example, the average person would have farmed 1.7 ha in the past, but must now take care of 4.2 ha, despite the external labor often sought to fill the gap (cf. Balse *et al.* 2015b: 12). This labor issue has become even greater, since it was also aggravated by the higher school enrolment of children, the result of significant education policy efforts by the Government, with support from international development agencies.

Based on various regional and international commitments, the Government of Benin adopted a policy paper for education in 2005. This policy document was strengthened later by the Growth Strategy for Poverty Reduction (SCRP117), which issued the political will of improving the human capital of the country by giving special priority to the *"*promotion of an education system for development*"* (SCRP, 2010: 112ff.). This led to the adoption of the Decennial Plan for Education Sector Development (PDDSE118), supported by international partners. Since 2006, the "Education for All" policy also promotes free primary education for all children and free secondary education for girls, followed by various sensitization, advocacy and support measures. This has resulted in increased numbers of students at these two education levels (Zerah and Fontaine, 2012).

This education trend at the national level is also visible in Gogounou, where child enrolment in primary schools has increased by more than 147% between 2000 and 2014 (Figure 6.3). The total number of schoolchildren increased from 5,718 in 2000–2001 (46% female), to 14,132 (53% female) in 2013–2014. Several local NGOs and international organizations, e.g. DANIDA, UNDP, UNICEF, WFP/ FAO,119 contributed by providing support to families in the form of food, uniforms, school supplies, etc. This improvement in the child education rate also impacted the availability of labor within rural households, where mechanization is an undeniable reality related to the increase in crop areas. Another labor-saving technology that has become accessible to many farmers is the use of chemical herbicides that are infor-

117 Stratégie de Croissance pour la Réduction de la Pauvreté.

118 Plan Décennal de Développement du Secteur de l'Education.

119 Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA); United Nations Development Program (UNDP); United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF); World Food Program (WFP) of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Figure 6.3: The changing numbers of schoolchildren in Gogounou from 2000 to 2014120

mally supplied by local operators. Now, I will present how agricultural input supply has become an informal business in Benin, and how the adoption of herbicides has become a threat to pastoralism in Gogounou District.

### *Agricultural reforms, de-liberalization and territorialization through herbicide use*

In the 1980s, the Government of Benin had a monopoly on the cotton sector, supplying seeds and inputs, providing training and advisory services, buying the production, ginning and exporting the cotton fiber, etc. As a result of the liberalization process started during the 1992–93 agricultural campaign, the input supply market was gradually granted to private actors (private importers-distributors) working in partnership with the Government through the public agricultural promotion and extension services (CTA, 2008: 3). The Inter-professional Cotton Association (AIC121) created in 1999 was in charge of critical functions in the cotton sector: cotton research, seed production, input supply, training and supervision of producers, quality control of cotton seed, fiber grading and road maintenance (*ibid:* 5). The inputs (fertilizers and pesticides) were provided by the businesses at a single price arranged with the Government, which strictly controlled the sector. This input policy was made up of three different components. First, the cotton inputs benefited from an import duty-free regime, while those of other crops were automatically charged import taxes. Second, cotton inputs were sold to farmers at highly subsidized prices.122 Finally, cotton inputs were supplied on credit to farmers according to their holdings and the

120 Source: From Gogounou School Board's database.

121 Association Interprofessionnelle du Coton (AIC).

122 The input subsidy could reach 75% in 1970, but the implementation of structural adjustment programs reduced it to 50% in 1983–84 and to 0% in 1988–89 (cf. Kherallah *et al.* 2001: 8f.).

costs systematically deducted from their income after commercialization (Kherallah *et al.* 2001: 8). Through this process, the sector was relatively well controlled by the Government, which hindered inroads from unlawful traders and unapproved private firms (*ibid:* 12f.).

The conflicts of interest between ginners, the regular protests of input suppliers against the procurement process and the cleavage within the single grassroots farmer organization in 2003 resulted in parallel input supply channels going out of control (Gbeffo, 2012: 22). The Government in 2006 intervened to resolve these difficulties through the establishment of national councils for each professional group involved in the cotton sector (farmers, inputs suppliers and ginners). The informal input flows were relatively controlled until 2007, when the Government initiated a series of reforms to improve the contribution of cotton to the economy. The Decree No. 2007-238 of 31 May 2007 on the definition and organization of the transitional management framework for the cotton sector repealed all the earlier acts, including the Decree No. 99-537 of 17 November 1999 on the transfer to the private sector of the responsibility of organizing consultations for the supply of agricultural inputs, and the Decree No. 2005-41 of 2 February 2005, which laid down the Framework Agreement between the Government and the inter-branch organization of the cotton sector. These reforms were perceived by private-sector actors as Government interference in a liberalized sector, and this led to a major conflict between the two groups. As a result, the liberalization acts were unilaterally cancelled by the Government (CTA, 2008; Meenink, 2013a).

This complete breakdown in the public-private partnership meant that the Government took over the cotton sector again. The powerful economic operators who were controlling the sector confronted the Government, making it difficult to supply inputs to farmers (cf. Dossoumou, 2012). The slow formal market – managed by the public agricultural promotion and extension services (CAIA, CARDER, SONAPRA, etc.)123 – was overtaken by informal flows of inputs out of Government control, rapidly developed by private businesses (cf. Meenink, 2013b:67). Farmers were supplied more quickly with pesticides for all types of crops and at very cheap prices. These chemicals, generally branded "Made in China", are illegally imported from Nigeria and Ghana and directly dumped without any environmental controls onto the cotton basin of northern Benin through its various border routes. Alongside the roads, in villages and marketplaces, such products have become highly accessible, especially given the possibility of credit arrangements. With 2,000–4,000 CFA francs, farmers can access one liter of herbicide, almost the same product offered through the formal market at 5,000–8,000 CFA francs. The Government, which wants, at all costs, cotton as well as grains to be abundantly produced to ensure economic growth and food security, was unable to control the input supply and banish the informal market as was previously the case prior to the reforms and their related conflicts. This

123 Centrale d'Achat des Intrants Agricoles (CAIA), Centre Agricole Régional pour le Développement Rural (CARDER), Société Nationale de Promotion Agricole (SONAPRA).

ubiquitous availability of agricultural pesticides has completely changed local farm practices, as I explain below.

Weeding technology and change in farm practices

For farmers in Gogounou, herbicide is one of the most important innovations that have revolutionized farming practices over the last decades. This is not to say that herbicides did not exist in the region before, but they had never been as accessible to farmers. Chemicals for weeding were introduced into Benin agriculture in the early 1980s. The first pre-extension tests dated back to 1979, when different products with weed-killing effects on cotton, maize, sorghum and peanut production were experienced across the country (cf. Atachi, 1979). This initial step in promoting herbicides was jointly made with other tropical countries of francophone sub-Saharan Africa in order to face the labor shortages challenging hand-weeding, creating a bottleneck in the cropping calendar (Gaborel and Fadoegnon, 1991; Marnotte, 1994). Since then, the use of herbicides increased mostly in cotton production due not only to the aforementioned input policy which targets cotton farmers, but also to the higher costs that non-cotton farmers could not afford to pay in cash. It is a fact that many cotton farmers diverted those products for use in their own food crops areas, or sold them off to their peers – which affected cotton yields (Kherallah *et al.* 2001: 16). However, the recent propagation of herbicides and the designed purchase facilities by sellers provide greater flexibility to farmers, who acquire these products in abundance not only for production purposes, but also to take control over the land.

According to the farmers, draft animals and tractors were the most remarkable innovations that preceded herbicides in Gogounou District. The advent of herbicides is therefore portrayed as the third milestone in local crop farming that brought it to a turning point in its history. The policy of the Government, oriented toward increasing the volume and price of cotton and the growth of the maize sector, justifies the choice of the farmers. On the one hand, they are increasingly involved in cotton production to meet the will of the Government. On the other hand, they have also increased maize production volumes to satisfy not only the expanding local market, but also the flourishing recent export market that makes the sector more attractive. Zato, a farmer in his eighties with the largest farmland in Zougou-Pantrossi Region, presented the agricultural trends from the 1960s onwards (Table 6.3), and Yarou, a farmer in his forties with the largest farmland in Boro village, shared his agricultural profile, showing the influence of herbicides on land occupation and farming activities (Table 6.4).

Closer monitoring of farm work reveals significant changes in the technical itineraries of the main crops grown in Gogounou District. I present here only the case of maize to show how the adoption of herbicides has changed the agricultural practices and the relations of rural actors to the land (Photo 6.2). I consider only the main cultivation operations from soil preparation up to the packaging of the grains to be

Table 6.3: Agricultural trends in Gogounou from the 1960s to date / continued

sold on the market, without going into detail about possible differences at the individual level.

The former way of cropping maize included land preparation, plowing, sowing, hand-weeding (with weeding hoe) and/or ridge-weeding (with draft animals), fertilization, harvesting, shelling, packaging and handling/transportation. By contrast, the "modern," technical route of maize production, chemicals are used for all weed-related activities. The use of herbicides has significantly relieved the manual soil-preparation activities, which currently involve spraying non-selective products on grassy plots to be plowed directly thereafter. The tedious time-consuming and labor-demanding hand-weeding is mostly replaced by easier herbicide-based weeding. Some farmers also adopt no-till farming, which is becoming common practice and offers great potential for labor saving and area expansion. Depending on their effects on grasses, crops and soils, farmers distinguish between three types of herbicides called *Kpake, Tangi*/*Yangatime* and *Dame* in Batonu language.124

124 Some of these names are in Batonu language (*Kpake, Tangi, Yangatime*); and others, like *Dame,* are adapted from the French language.

#### Table 6.4: Agricultural profile of Yarou, a farmer in Gogounou

Table 6.4: Agricultural profile of Yarou, a farmer in Gogounou / continued

*Kpake* (meaning burning product): These are non-selective field-clearing herbicides used to prepare land by weeding out all types of vegetation. Their role is to "burn" everything as stated in the name that is given to them. They include different glyphosate-based herbicides having industrial names of Kalach, Sharp, Herbextra, etc.

*Yangatime* or *Tangi* (meaning selecting product): These are selective pre-emergence weed-killers used to control specific crop weeds (in maize, cotton, rice, yam, etc.) or particular types of weeds. For maize, farmers used to use herbicides with the names Amino-force, Atraforce (also called *Bogoumbo* in Batonu), Bic (also called *Somboure* in Batonu), Hervextra, Heabesta, etc. They are thought to have dual weedkilling and soil-fertilizing functions. This conceptualization is due to two main factors. Firstly, cropland treated only with herbicide, but without any application of fertilizers is supposed to have almost the same yield than a cropland weeded with a hoe or draft animals and sprayed with fertilizers. The application of fertilizers is sometimes considered unnecessary after the use of certain types of selective herbicides. Secondly, some herbicides are in the form of flour and farmers interpret them

as having the same role as fertilizers.125 By using such herbicides, they believed they could solve the problem of weed competition and improve their overall crop performance.

*Dame* (meaning soil-compacting product): These are usually systemic herbicides used for their anti-germinative effects on weeds. They are applied just after sowing to prevent the sown fields from early weedy species at the expense of the main crop. Some post-emergence selective herbicides are sometimes placed in this category. The most important factor here is their action on the soil, which becomes unsuitable for the rapid emergence of weeds to compete with the crops. They are thought to have a compacting effect on soil over an average of 40 days, thus facilitating crop growth in the early weeks. This category includes mainly Atraz50FW, known by farmers as also having fertilizing effects.

These perceptions about chemical weed killers govern various farm practices that may vary from one farmer to another. Modern farmers in Gogounou are those who use not only the tractor for plowing, but also strongly incorporate herbicides in their farming practices. And when one is a good user of herbicides, three key factors can influence the agricultural performance: the type of crop (maize, cotton and so on), the type of soil (new or old land) and the type of plowing (hoe, draft animals or tractor-based plowing or no-till sowing).

*Type of crop:* Cotton for example requires more care than maize. Additional handweeding or herbicide spraying could be done by farmers to increase yields. The cotton field needs more care in terms of cleaning activities, and some operations such as harvesting are more expensive than in the case of maize. Farmers rarely practice notill cotton because they perceive it as risky for cotton productivity. Furthermore, it is not allowed by the extension services, which can prevent them from receiving input credit if they do this. As the attention is lower in the maize sector, the no-till practice is fairly common in maize cropping. Maize crops are not subject to insecticide treatments for controlling pests and parasites, as is usually the case with cotton.

*Type of land:* Two types of land are distinguished: *Tem kpa* (new land) and *Tem toko* (old land). The new farmlands are fallow lands used for farming purposes for less than three years. They are characterized essentially by relatively high fertility and low susceptibility to weeds, but require more physical, material and financial effort for soil preparation (tree cutting, stump clearing, etc). The old farmland soils are those that are cultivated for more than three years, are relatively poor and where the weed attack is fast, heavy and oppressive to the main crop. Plowing, especially with tractors, as well as no-till seeding technique are easier on old farmland because the land is cleaner and does not need the removal of tree stumps.

*Type of plowing:* Tractor-based plowing is deeper, relatively more expensive, but more productive with the same level of care. Hoe-plowing is in essence equal to the draft-animal plowing in terms of cost and seeding easiness. Seeding in tractor plow-

125 I have not checked whether herbicides are actually fertilizers at the same time. The perceptions and practices of actors were more important to me during my fieldwork.

Photo 6.2: Herbicide application for land preparation in Gogounou

ing is more demanding in terms of time and skills. Seeding on no-tilled lands is the most expensive. For each crop, yields may depend on which combination is used (tilling method and land type), without including the effects of weeding methods.

Short-term profitability of herbicide-based agriculture

From a comparative perspective, I present here the short-term profitability of herbicide use as seen by farmers themselves in maize production in both former and new farming systems (Tables 6.5. and 6.6). The costs of farming tasks are estimated in terms of the technical process through which the crop is managed. Only the most important farming tasks are considered: land preparation, plowing, seeding, weeding, fertilization, harvesting, shelling, packaging and handling/transportation.

In light of the assessments presented in Tables 6.5 and 6.6, herbicides have the advantage, at least in the short term, of partly addressing the problem of labor shortage. Weeding, which is one of the most important farming activities, is achieved with less difficulty. In the end, the farmer who uses these chemicals earns at least 35,000 CFA francs (US\$ 70)126 more per hectare of cultivated land than the farmer who has not used them. This is a short-term advantage sought by all farmers and justifies

126 1 US\$ = 500 CFA francs.

Table 6.5: Maize farming without weeding chemicals

Figure 6.4: Evolution of crop areas in Gogounou from 1996 to 2013127

the expansion of these products across Gogounou. The farmers regard herbicides as having helped to facilitate the education of children, since they alleviate the need for labor. This positive correlation between technological change and children's schooling in northern Benin was also established by Baco (2008: 11).

As cotton and maize receive special attention from the state agricultural policy – the former is for export and the latter is for food security – most farmers increase their acreages and the production of both. With successive crises in the cotton sector, priority is given however to maize cropping. This interest in maize production also increased with the growing exports to neighboring countries, which raises speculation on prices during certain periods of the year. Through improved varieties (white and mostly yellow) and higher production across northern regions, the maize locally produced in Benin has become highly profitable and competitive within the West African sub-region (cf. Baco *et al.* 2009; Diallo *et al.* 2012). Figure 6.4 shows the changes in areas of major crops in Gogounou District from 1996 to 2013.

Cotton *(Gossypium sp)* was by far the first cash crop in Gogounou. Its acreage has changed significantly from 1996 until the 2008–09 agricultural campaign, when the situation was reversed by a craze for grain production. The area covered by cotton, while still large, records an unsteady trend thereafter.

Cereal production has skyrocketed in recent decades. The cultivated area of cereals quadrupled between 1996 and 2013, rising from 7,258 ha to 28,525 ha. The main cereals planted are maize *(Zea mays),* sorghum (*Sorghum bicolor*), millet *(Pennisetum glaucum)* and rice *(Oryza sativa).* Maize is the top-priority cereal in Gogounou. Its area has increased fivefold from 4,454 ha in 1996 to 22,686 ha in 2013. Maize is followed by rice, which quadrupled in area from 338 ha in 1996

127 Source: From CARDER B/A database (2014).

Figure 6.5: Evolution of total crop areas, products and yields from 1996 to 2013128

to 1,258 ha in 2013. This implies a high exploitation of wetlands for agricultural purposes. Sorghum doubled in area with an annual average of 3,541 ha. The area of millet remained almost constant over the period, with an annual average of 123 ha. Maize and rice are two crops that contributed to the enormous increase in cereal area in Gogounou District.

The roots and tubers, being cassava *(Manihot esculenta),* yam *(Dioscorea spp)* and sweet potato *(Ipomœa batatas),* covered almost constantly an average of 2,664 ha per year over the period. This is also the trend in leguminous crops, being cowpea *(Vigna unguiculata),* groundnut *(Arachis hypogaea),* voandzou *(Vigna subterianea)* and soybean *(Glycine max),* whose cultivated area averaged 2,358 ha from 1996 to 2013. The main vegetables produced in Gogounou are okra *(Abelmoschus esculentus),* pepper *(Capsicum annuum ssp),* tomato *(Solanum lycopersicum),* sesame *(Sesamum indicum)*  and squash *(Cucurbita spp).* Their annual area averages 457 ha and remains almost stable over the period under consideration.

In summary, there has been an expansion of cotton cultivation and much more in grain production during the last decades in Gogounou. The other crops have relatively stable areas or have experienced a less remarkable increase over the period. In all cases, no crop in Gogounou District has significantly decreased in area. This partly explains the intense pressure on land and the impact on grassland availability observed. The increasing trend taking place is even more evident in the evolution of production per unit of land (Figure 6.5).

Figure 6.5 shows a continued increase in the total cultivated area from 1996 to 2013. The total annual crop area has practically doubled in seventeen years from 24,783 ha to 50,475 ha. The total production (all crops together) has also evolved

128 Source: From CARDER B/A database (2014).

from 37,842 tons in 1996 to 98,375 tons in 2013. Despite this increase in both total cultivated area and total production, the yield has not significantly improved. The average annual yield is invariably equal to two tons per hectare over the whole period. This observable land-use trend, in which the value of product per land unit does not significantly improve despite a doubling of the total cultivated area over time, could be referred to as agricultural extensification. This was possible thanks to the access of farmers to the different technologies presented above, especially tractors and pesticides. The use of non-selective and selective herbicides has become alarming with regard to high pollution pressure and challenge to the agro-ecological sustainability of family farms (cf. Ligan-Topanou *et al.* 2015: 134). I will show in the next section the informal system through which farmers gain access to herbicides and the main trajectories of its appropriation by them.

Contraband trade and chemical flows in Gogounou

The informal herbicide market has become very dynamic in recent years in Gogounou District, as in other cotton-growing areas of northern Benin. The import is done by traders or economic operators who cross borders with their products to be locally retailed. The large scale of this contraband could raise doubt as to the unawareness of border authorities and government officials. In all cases, there are currently no worries for those who are engaged in such cross-border trade. As my informants often repeated, they are experts in legally crossing borders with illegal products.

The largest wholesalers located in neighboring districts of Gogounou (N'Dali, Kandi or Bembéréké) supply and control the retail trade sector. Some importers with smaller capital also live locally in Gogounou. When the products from Nigeria or Ghana eventually make their way to Gogounou, they are sold on credit to semi-wholesalers or retailers who are responsible for distribution to farmers. Many schoolchildren and undergraduate students were also involved. They were mostly semi-wholesalers or retailers in local marketplaces, along the streets, across villages and hamlets and even at home. This was the case of Idrissou, a young undergraduate in Geography who took advantage of the herbicide marketing opportunity to develop his own business. He is supplied by another young, unemployed Bachelor in Marketing and Management student from the University of Parakou. The latter is a semi-wholesaler coached by his uncle, a trader and importer of pesticides from Ghana, living in N'Dali District. Hundreds of herbicide boxes received on credit are sold for cash or distributed on credit to loyal customers like Idrissou, who goes through several local marketplaces and villages to sell his products in order to be in good standing with his supplier at the end of the week.

The herbicide distribution chain is a flourishing business to all actors involved. Mr. "3212" is an importer from Ghana and Nigeria with a financial capital of about three million CFA francs. He delivers his products on credit to semi-wholesalers for 22,000–25,000 CFA francs per box keeping twelve containers of one liter. The semi-wholesalers supply retailers at 25,000–29,000 CFA francs per box and earn about 4,000 CFA francs per box sold. A container of herbicide costs 2,500–3,000 CFA francs from the retailers who recover 30,000–36,000 CFA francs per box. This activity procures finally 5,000–6,500 CFA francs to every retailer per box. The fairly dynamic young retailers like Idrissou sell an average of five boxes each week, yielding 25,000 CFA francs per week and therefore 100,000 CFA francs per month.

Within the context of growing youth unemployment, this business makes powerful actors on the ground.129 The youth unemployment rate in Benin increased to 14% in 2012 from only 1% in 2001, while the youth underemployment rate ran to 70% in 2013 from about 50% in 2011. More than 150,000 young people join the labor market each year and 20% of them do not hold qualifications (INSAE, 2013b). The flourishing informal business of pesticide supply seems to be one of the most successful jobs for some of the youth who leave the cities to return to their villages. But the weeding chemicals distributed to farmers are appropriated, reinterpreted and used for land control and also to contest the land occupied by Fulani pastoralists, as will become evident in the following section.

New farmers, land dynamics and pastoralism in Gogounou

The ease of farming with various adopted technologies and the perceived profitability cause the intrusion of new actors in agriculture. Some unusual actors have come to increasingly make a place for themselves in the "modern" agriculture of Gogounou.

"Agriculture is now very easy and profitable. Anyone can have a farm and easily cultivate land". This remark was made by an official working in the local authority of Gogounou. The adoption of herbicides has led to a kind of agricultural revolution. Not everyone has land, but seemingly everyone is trying to have a farm. Public servants, including agricultural extension officers, foresters, primary and secondary schools teachers, health officers and various employees of the municipal authority, are all engaged in cropping. This is the case of Dramane, who coincides his annual leave with the period of farming activities to personally supervise the work entrusted to laborers. Others, living far away from Gogounou, regularly use phone calls to get informed of the progress of their agricultural works and spend some weekends for visits. It is also common to meet some state officials, originally from Gogounou, but who work and live in the southern capitals, and who rely on chemical products to secure their land ownership locally. Herbicides have therefore enabled land control in Gogounou as I will detail later on.

"Banning herbicides is killing women". This statement comes from a woman farmer of Boro village, who claims that herbicides have played a major role in em-

129 This is to compare the young traders of pesticides to the former secretaries of cotton farmer groups in northern Benin. The annual rebates "ristournes" in the cotton sector had made the latter into important local powers (cf. Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan, 1998). I have found that the large income from illegal pesticide trading is promoting economically capable youth in many parts of northern Benin.

powering women in agricultural society in Gogounou. Moving from a marginalized position with respect to land access, women are now strongly competing with men in terms of grain and cotton acreages and production volumes. With access to herbicides, Fatouma, a woman from Gounarou village, has doubled her cultivation area in the past six years. She could now afford ten hectares of various crops (two hectares of cotton, seven hectares of maize and one hectare of rice), instead of half to one hectare some years ago. Fatouma has the largest land holding of any woman in Gounarou village. She shared her profile, which is summarized in Table 6.7.

"I was refusing to work on the farm, but now I am cultivating my own field myself without anybody asking me to do that". This is the new option for Yaya, a young scholar ending his fourth year at secondary school. At 16 years of age, thanks to herbicides, he was able to cultivate maize during the 2013–14 farming season on two hectares of his father's land. Other schoolboys and students go further to access land. This is the case of Aboubakar, who relied on his maternal grandparents in Béroubouay Region (Bembéréké District) to access two hectares, where he has harvested 6,000 kg of maize sold for 150 CFA francs per kg. With his farm income slightly less than a million CFA francs, the student-farmer has renovated his room and settled his recent wedding expenses.

The increase in cultivated area by the old farmers and the zeal of new farmers led to new land dynamics. Land tenure has evolved greatly over the last few years. Land is accessed in Gogounou by inheritance, donation, purchase, lease, loan or confiscation. Inheritance was the dominant land access mode. As described by Zato, "land conflicts are mainly caused by those whose grandparents had been lazy in the past and have not left them a great land legacy, but now they want to cultivate land in the same way as those who inherited enough land from their grandparents" (Zato, Zougou-Pantrossi, 10/07/14). The gift of land is declining in Gogounou. It has become almost impossible to find people who were granted land by donation. Buying and leasing are two modes of land access that are becoming more common. They enable autochthonous people to expand their agricultural land. Purchase is the route most associated with conflict, giving rise to the appearance of new landowners in formerly common properties. Land is sold by third persons to foreigners from neighboring districts and urban centers for 150,000 CFA – 250,000 CFA francs per hectare, and leased out for 5,000 CFA – 20,000 CFA francs per hectare and year. It is also possible to encounter cases of interest-free loans of small plots to women or foreigners working on-site (forest officers, teachers, medical practitioners and other state employees), enabling them to crop maize.

The Fulani pastoralists, who are still considered as strangers or immigrants, generally lose out in land-access transactions in which Bariba farmers can confiscate their small plots by force to be cultivated, leased out or even sold to non-natives. This has enabled some youth to access land that their parents or grandparents had previously given to friends, kinsmen or immigrants on a freehold basis. The use of herbicides feeds various forms of abuse and enables farmers, who are keen to increase their holdings, to take hold of land that does not belong to them. It also allows those

#### Table 6.7: Farm technologies and a woman's agricultural profile in Gounarou

who have land and could not cultivate it to keep ownership by spraying seasonally non-selective herbicides. Three examples of such situations are provided hereafter:

It is thanks to *kpake* that I could take back 10 hectares to increase my maize acreage. This plot was occupied by people who said they have received it as gift from my late father. Luckily for me, they were not able to cultivate all of it. There were unused plots each year. The first year I applied *kpake,* but I did not cultivate. It was as if I was struggling against the infestation of my bordering cotton fields by insects that could come from these unoccupied plots. They thought I was joking. The second year, I spread again *kpake* but this time I cultivated a portion of it. This is where the uprising began. But I took the opportunity from my local councilor position to confine the whole plot with landmarks. They could no longer hold it. Only *kpake* enabled me to achieve this, because I cannot myself cultivate all this land if these products were not accessible. (Chabi130, Boro, 02/07/14)

Chabi's strategy was to take possession of uncultivated areas surrounding his field. On a plot close to his own cotton field, my interlocutor applied non-selective herbicides, giving the impression of protecting his crops against pests. Following the same practice for two years, he then took possession of the plot that he demarcated and claimed ownership. This unspoken strategy was successful, since it has become common in the region to control the crop pests by weeding out the uncultivated lands bordering the farmers' fields. The fact that this plot had belonged to his father in the past was an important, but not a sufficient reason to justify his attitude. He was seeking, at any cost, to broaden his area of cultivation and, therefore, would have likely behaved in the same way even if the concerned field had not been linked to his late father. His local councilor position gave him the additional power to do so. Like Chabi, many farmers are engaged in such abuses, as herbicides enable them to cultivate more than they could in the past. They surreptitiously used herbicides to claim ownership of lands surrounding their crop fields. The herbicide is here a technology for land conquest, favoring the territorialization by crop farmers. But people, who see through the "evil doings" of land confiscation, have begun to design some of their own counter-strategies to defeat them. This is the case of Adamu131:

The only way to keep the land now is to cultivate. If you cannot cultivate it, so you have to find a way to preserve it, otherwise people will quickly tear you. It is not to be victim of these things that every year I send money to my cousins who buy herbicides and spray all over my field. Then, people will not think of it as a virgin land without owner and will not try to take it. I always tell them

130 The informant has been anonymized.

131 The informant has been anonymized.

if they can cultivate, it may be good, but if they cannot, the most important for me is that the herbicide is sprayed. (Adamu, native of Gogounou, Kandi, 07/07/14)

Adamu is a Gogounou native, state official and permanently settled further north in Benin away from his home village. Since he cannot cultivate the land he inherited from his father, and does not want to become a victim of the land pressure that is occurring in Gogounou, every year my informant sends a certain amount of money to his relatives, who buy herbicides and spray them on the plot. Adamu's objective is to show that his plot has, indeed, an owner; and that not being cultivated is not synonymous with abandonment or ownerless. The herbicide became a property right preserver for absentee landowners. But, preserving ownership by using herbicides is not an exclusive attribute of absentee landowners. Even large landlords on site also draw their tenure security from such practices. This is the case of Issifou132:

There is a return of intellectuals to agriculture. Everybody wants to cultivate land. People are looking to gain some plots from me. I have enough land, but I do not want to distribute it to people; otherwise, my children will not have enough later. [...]. Therefore, every season I buy *kpake* that I dilute enough of and I spray it on the fields. As people know that it is land to be cultivated, nobody disturbs me again to give him land and I am quiet. (Issifou, Gogounou, 27/06/14)

The case presented above is that of Issifou, a large landowner in Gogounou. Not to have to lease out his plots to demanders and deprive his offspring later, one of his strategies was to buy herbicides and spray them on the land. While this strategy is questionable and may not last over time because of the related costs, it allows him not to be forced to rent his land to someone; and thus to avoid the problems and abuses associated with leasing. The herbicide is again a tool for confirmation and preservation of property rights for large landowners.

Here are some practices for controlling land, securing land rights and making territories. Like in the case of Chabi, Adamu and Issifou, land-control practices have spread across Gogounou. As reflected in the three case studies, access to land is no easy thing among Bariba farmers who have customary property rights to land. One could already imagine how difficult it could be for Fulani pastoralists, who are still considered strangers with no land ownership. These chemicals are regularly used to challenge and contest them. I personally witnessed, on 10 May 2014, a case of land expropriation in a Fulani camp in Boro village. I was conducting an interview within a Fulani household when their expropriator came onto the expropriated land that he had already prepared to be cultivated. The Fulani herders, who were looking at me as a genuine *missus dominicus,* tried to take advantage of my presence to confront

132 The informant has been anonymized.

their malefactor. This quickly turned into verbal confrontation. Although I could not make any concrete solution to this issue at this particular time, my presence at least deterred the antagonists and helped to avoid physical confrontation, which would have been detrimental to my hosts and myself. My research assistant was even intimidated sometimes by some opinion leaders who thought he brought a stranger to defend the interests of Fulani against Bariba. I have mentioned these incidents to demonstrate how the land issue has become so sensitive that everyone in my study area was on high alert.

"Herbicide has changed everything. Everybody has become lazy; nobody wants to make some effort". This statement made by a farmer of Bagou village shows that herbicides have impacted more than only farming activities. This became most evident when I observed the courtyards of houses being cleared with herbicides. The weeding technology is increasingly used to clean the dwelling places. It is common to see people spraying non-selective weeding products inside and outside of their residences. It is the new way of cleaning homes and hindering reptiles and insects from invading. The trend is similar in both city and villages. Within villages, herbicides are used to clean up the pathways leading to the farms. Here, the weeding technology serves to maintain the rural tracks and footpaths.

The consequences of herbicide use on livestock production in Gogounou are twofold. The direct impact of herbicides is the poisoning of animals on sprayed farmlands, while the indirect consequences concern the general shortage of pastureland throughout the district. Old pastureland has been overgrown by crop fields. The regrowth of grasses in the new rainy season and animal corridors are also affected by herbicides. Pastoralism is significantly affected by this increase in cultivated area, reducing the availability of grasslands for feeding animals. Moreover, water resources are sometimes polluted with herbicides causing health problems for watering animals. The corridors leading to water resources are blocked by crop fields. All 68 corridors (making up a total length of 461 km) recently marked by pastoralist associations, consensually with representatives of all stakeholders, are almost fully occupied by crop fields (Boukari Bata, 2012: 11). A Fulani herder shared his experience of herbicides:

If people did not stand in solidarity in my neighborhood, I would be today without a herd. The herbicide lives in all of Gogounou. One day, my cattle went off to graze. But the fifty animals came back home with various symptoms. Some were crying, others were madly jumping and yet others were distending their tongues, salivating abundantly. In three days, I lost 10 of them. On my friends' advice, I sent three to Gogounou livestock market that I sold for 350,000 CFA francs. With this money I paid 100 liters of palm oil for about 300,000 CFA francs that I started serving as drink to the cattle. Some friends also proposed serving millet or sorghum porridge as a drink for my animals in order to urinate, which helps remove much of the herbicide they have swallowed while grazing. In this situation, I really experienced Fulani solidarity; everyone brought porridge to my animals. Women offered my herd porridge in cans or bowls all day long. This support that I received, the grainbased porridge mixed with palm oil, helped me salvage my thirty cattle, even if they have not yet fully recovered. That I continue to be an animal owner, like the Fulani, is only because of the support I received from my relatives and my friends; otherwise, herbicides would have already completely changed my story. The herbicide-based agriculture in modern Gogounou society is the worst Fulani-experienced tragedy. Obviously, many have already left. (Oumarou, Wesseke, 01/08/14)133

Oumarou suffered the atrocities of the use of herbicides as a trap against wandering animals. A farmer who was tired of the destruction of his maize fields by unknown cattle found the solution to his problem through herbicides. Amadou's herd, which was not directly targeted in this chemical ambush, ended up paying the price of the tense neighborhood relations between Bariba farmers and Fulani pastoralists. He finally lost ten animals and was able to get out of this situation only through his social network involving relatives and friends who offered him advice and recipes for preventing the worst.

In summary, the weeding products enable farmers to expand crop cultivation in labor-constrained situations.134 Land transactions, abuses and conflicts are increasing as new actors are also increasingly getting involved in the new-found ease of agricultural production. Some farmers use weeding products to lay claim to the seemingly ownerless lands surrounding their fields as a territorialization strategy. Others, mainly absentee landholders and large landlords, apply chemicals to maintain their ownership. However, such herbicide use has reduced the extent of rangelands and poisoned cattle grazing on sprayed lands or drinking polluted water, increasing farmer-herder conflicts. As argued by science and technology scholars about the reinterpretation and renegotiation of technology in use (Latour, 1986; Pfaffenberger, 1992; Wajcman, 2000), it appears that the herbicide is being reinterpreted as that of a simple weeding chemical, labor-saving and agricultural intensification technology, to that of a extensification chemical and weapon used to take advantage of land and social conflicts.

133 The informant has been anonymized.

134 Although this was not an area I focused on during the study, it is worth mentioning that crop expansion is supported by the unfortunate increase in doping practices. A single farmer, with a small family, and thus only a few laborers, can have over fifty hectares of maize. He must, therefore, perform most of the farm activities himself. To cope with the harsh workload, he might engage in various forms of doping, using various drugs, analgesics and mixtures. The most famous pain relief drug used is *Tramadol,* which is linked to overdosing. Pharmaceutical drugs are supplemented with alcohol, coffee, chewing tobacco, and traditional doping powders and the like to enable the farmer to exceed his normal daily capacity of work. This "Tramadol-based crop farming" has greatly contributed to the current land configuration.

Enclosure, logging and tree-based territorialization in Gogounou

The previous section has demonstrated how access to land and rangeland has become difficult for Fulani pastoralists. This section is a step forward to focus on forest resource governance and the influence of growing wood exports on pastoralism. I start by summarizing the institutional framework in which informal logging has developed. I will then present the local actors involved, the forms of legitimization of the activity, the mechanisms developed to raise awareness of decision-makers, and the influence of wood-selling practices on neighboring farmers and herders.

### *From enclosure to liberalized forest resource market*

The enclosure of forest resources was initiated in Benin by the colonial administration in the early twentieth century. Two key policy documents characterize the context in which forests were classified. First, the legal basis, which was the Forest Decree of 4 July 1935, established forests within French West Africa and, second, a report of a diagnostic study in 1936 by Aubreville on forest resources in Dahomey (Aubreville, 1937; Houndagba *et al.* 2007). The Inspection of Nature Protection and Hunting (IPNC135) was created in 1964 to protect nature and conserve wildlife, but did not operate well for various reasons (cf. Takpara and Moudachirou, 2012: 27). It was more successfully engaged in monitoring and struggling against poaching and transhumance within the forests (Tiomoko, 2014: 35). The limited use rights granted to the traditional users of forest resources during this period gave way to abuse, causing severe damage to forest resources (Hounkpodote, 2002a: 13). From the 1980s onwards, there was the implementation of an integral protection policy, which made use of more coercive measures inspired by the Law No. 87-012 of 21 September 1987 concerning Forest Code in Benin Republic and the Decree No. 89-385 of 24 October 1989, and laid down the detailed rules for the application of the latter law. During this "fortress discourse" period, the State was the holder of resources and relied on repressive approaches to control the use of them (Akouehou, 2004; Pochet, 2014).

The governance of natural resources has taken a new turn since the 1990s when processes of political democratization and economic liberalization were initiated in the country. Major institutional and technical progress has been made during this period. The forest policy has moved towards a participatory approach to reconcile the socio-economic needs of local communities with the environmental preservation and biodiversity conservation goals. This was made possible by the adoption of the Law No. 93-009 on 2 July 1993 dealing with forest management in Benin Republic and the enforcing of Decree No. 96-271 on 2 July 1996. A forest development policy was adopted in 1994 for the sustainable management of natural resources, considering participation from grassroots populations and knowledge from various players

135 Inspection de la Protection de la Nature et de la Chasse.

involved in the sector. A forest action plan was established thereafter. Some classified forests and state plantations benefited from participatory management plans. The National Center for Wildlife Reserves Management (CENAGREF136), responsible for wildlife conservation, was also created by Decree No. 96-73 on 2 April 1996 (DGFRN, 2012: 13).

The State monopolization of forest resources has given way to various forms of collective ownership and participatory management (Akouehou, 2004). The classified areas were separated from protected areas. The protected areas involved reserves controlled by the State that were not subject to any legal act of registration (cf. Art. 4, Law No. 93-009). While efforts are being made to make participatory management plans for classified forests, the protected areas are under free usage rights, but subject to compliance with established rules (Hounkpodote, 2002a: 15). This liberal trend has been reinforced by the implementation of the decentralization policy, which began in 2003 with the election and the establishment of local and municipal councils.

This liberal policy of forest governance has been marked by several changes: (i) the creation of a capital market for the exchange and consumption of natural resources, with the involvement of Beninese banks in granting investment and operating credit to the private actors involved in the timber industry; (ii) the privatization of control over forest resources, characterized by concessions to private actors being individuals, communities, local authorities; (iii) the withdrawal of the State from direct intervention in market transactions of forest products, resulting in an almost exclusive occupation of the export sector by private operators, etc (Edja, 2012). Regarding power and disciplinary sanctions, there was also a shift, since the Government began sharing some of its prerogatives with other stakeholders: local populations, grassroots organizations, local authorities, consumer trade unions and other market forces. Thus, the democratization progress and the decentralization efforts that subsequently followed have both resulted in power plays at the village level (cf. Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan, 1998; 2003; Pochet, 2014: 8). Natural resource conservation has become a major issue at all levels.

In this context of liberal governance of forests and natural resources overlapped with "the back to the barriers" discourse (Pochet, 2014: 10), timber transactions have considerably expanded. Recent studies reported that forest products contribute 6.64% of GDP, which does not account for the huge illegal flow of timber products excluded from national accounts (Bertrand *et al.* 2009; 2013). This sector has great potential, especially with the development of the Asian market, which offers new prospects for African economies. In Benin in recent years, illegal and abusive tree cutting has taken place, which, beyond its contribution to deforestation, has greatly affected pastoralism. A brief history of this phenomenon in my study area, its legitimization at the national level and, finally, its contribution to the deterioration of Fulani pastoralist livelihoods are discussed below.

136 Centre National de Gestion des Réserves de Faunes.

#### *Browse vegetation and territorialization by chainsaws in Gogounou*

The direct link between pastoralism and logging lies in the ability of Fulani herders to use browse from various woody plant species to supplement the diets of their animals under conditions of scarcity. The browse vegetation is a valuable animal fodder resource in different agro-ecological zones of sub-Saharan Africa, especially during dry periods and within the context of climate change (cf. Zampaligré, 2012; Zampaligré *et al.* 2013). The Fulani pastoralists in Benin are also experts in using certain browse species to maintain or improve the production and reproduction performance of their herds, when agro-ecological and pedo-climatic patterns lead to seasonal shortages in sufficient green pasture. Several authors have shown how significant plant species, such as, *Afzelia africana, Pterocarpus erinaceus* and *Khaya senegalensis*137 are in the annual cycle of livestock production and the mobility strategies of Fulani pastoralists (Agbahungba *et al.* 2001: 12; Djenontin *et al.* 2004; 2012; Djenontin, 2010: 105ff.). Djenontin *et al.* (2004) gave details of the differential approach implemented by the Fulani to feed their animals. They reported that, during the dry season, draft animals, breeding bulls, dairy cows and calves are kept at the settlement, while the rest of the herd is sent to find pasture. The former are fed with crop residues collected by the herders in their own small farms, or negotiated with farmers who have larger fields. The lowland *(fadama)* grasses and tree forage species are then used as feed supplements to get through the unfavorable season.

In the particular case of Gogounou, some rangeland ecologists and animal scientists, who were interested in the local livestock production systems, reported that the tree forage mentioned above can improve milk productivity in the dry season. Their proven nutritional value and stimulating effect on milk production, helps herders face the major difficulties of accessing pasture during these periods (Bouraïma, 2006; Houéhanou, 2006; Awohouedji, 2008; Alkoiret *et al.* 2009; Degbohouet, 2010). Some tree forage species are also preserved by pastoralists for their medicinal values for which leaves, seeds and bark are involved in treating animal diseases and providing various forms of veterinary care (Alkoiret *et al.* 2009: 87).

The above-mentioned trees are among the woody species most targeted by the flourishing trade of wood to Asian countries, especially China. This does not mean that forage plants had never been cut or exported in the past, but that the kind of export in question differs from the former by the extremely rapid growth of current logging practices in a short period of time (only since 2008). Another striking feature of this new form of logging is the systematic use of mechanical chainsaws, deliberately against Article 53 of the Forestry Code, which prohibits the use of such machines. There is no region in Gogounou that is untouched by the phenomenon; and there are very few days when the chainsaw does not resound in the bush and forest reserves. These timber transactions are now carried out by the same local communi-

137 The Fulfulde names of these tree species are: *Warnyanhi (Afzelia africana), Banuhi (Pterocarpus erinaceus)* and *Kahi (Khaya senegalensis).*

ties who initially opposed them.  The situation has changed since the people understood that the political elites were totally involved in what was initially perceived as a simple short-term activity. Some of my informants revealed that the booming wood trade is in line with the government's partnership with the Chinese, who have become very involved in providing aid for the country's development. Before showing the complex network of local actors involved in the wood-cutting abuse, I will first present how it started in Gogounou by drawing on the narrative of an administrative officer of Zougou-Pantrossi Region:

Tree-cutting began here in 2008. One Thursday, the head of loggers operating in Alibori Province and the chief of the regional forest office of Kandi came to request my collaboration for some timber harvesting for a short period of time in my region. I firmly rejected by explaining that there is no more wood in my area. They besought me for a while and suggested that we go together to ask the local forest officer living in the village to inform us on the availability of timber within both the forest and the village land. Once we arrived, the local forest officer convinced me of the possibility of logging without damaging. We therefore arranged a program to move the next Sunday around "Trois-Rivières" state forest and bordering villages to see where trees can be really harvested. Before leaving, our hosts gave me 100,000 CFA francs as motivation for my willingness to cooperate.

Very early on Sunday, I went to the forest office of Zougou, but unfortunately his wife informed me about his absence. I decided to move forward in meeting and informing local communities of Dougoulaye village. We agreed on 300 beams for 1,000 CFA francs per unit. The total amount 300,000 CFA francs this activity would generate was to be used to pay the salaries of teachers of the village school. For leaving, I gave 50,000 CFA francs from the 100,000 CFA francs I have been previously given by the loggers to the village chief for their agreement.

Surprisingly, none of these actors came back for further negotiations. Woodcutters were sent in the forest reserve and the surrounding areas to cut wood. In only few days, a lot of timber was already cut and conveyed to the village capital, and the end was not in sight. This situation was not understandable to me, and I found it was an abuse. I therefore angrily enlisted help from the municipal authority in punishing severely. The Mayor and the entire city council decided to pick up all the timber to be stored within the city office while waiting for the defendants.

Disappointingly, the municipal authority was subjected to pressures and threats from above and the Mayor was having serious problems. We heard that Parliament Members, government officials and various elites were involved in this business with the Chinese. (An administrative officer of Zougou-Pantrossi Region, 04/08/14)

I have reported this story to show the extent of logging in Gogounou. Logging is as old as humanity, but what began in Gogounou from 2008 appears to be related to the partnership between Benin and Asian countries, especially China. The export of wood to Asia is an activity that targets particular species of which, like those mentioned above, are useful for pastoralists. The seeming involvement of high state officials and government members in this business makes local authorities and local forest administration powerless to fight against the practice. This is why there was finally a strong involvement of local communities; each seeking to take advantage of the situation. One might even think that the activity is legal in light of the ongoing dynamics. The administrative officer of Zougou-Pantrossi, quoted above, further explained how the illegal logging was legitimized:

Everybody finally understood and realized the need to be careful and just take his share of the windfall. People were calling loggers to sell trees on farmlands. They also find good wood in Fulani camps because they are foreigners and do not normally own land. I decided myself as *[an administrative officer]* of the region to levy local development taxes on the activity. Therefore, I imposed that any logging shall be under an entry bond of 350,000 CFA francs and an exit tax of 200,000 CFA francs per loaded 10-ton truck. The front deposit belonged to me personally and was distributed as follows: 50,000 CFA francs for youth's local security forces that I have deployed on all roads for securing persons and goods, 50,000 CFA francs for my counselors and 250,000 CFA francs for myself. The 200,000 CFA francs operating tax is fully accounted for public funds dedicated to local development initiatives. We mobilized millions who have enabled us to achieve many goals for the population's wellbeing. For example, we invested 6.7 million CFA francs in building school residences for students coming from our area to provide them with enough housing conditions for their secondary education in Gogounou city center.

The City Authority also took substantial advantage of this trade. For a loaded 10-ton truck of timber, the municipality received an average of 600,000 CFA francs. Other actors such as gendarmes, foresters and farmers have also considerably benefited from the windfall of illegal logging. Wood has really enriched people in a very short time. My nephew became wealthy in four years. He built two-storey houses in Parakou; he opened several well-equipped carpentry and joinery workshops, and also built a sumptuous fully tiled villa here in the village. He went from being a poor carpenter, to becoming a great entrepreneur and businessman. For my part, I really enjoyed building a beautiful house in Gogounou city center. […]. The forest, while belonging to all, is for nobody. As an old saying goes, "Collective death is not difficult to endure". Everybody is accountable for this crime. (Administrative Officer, Zougou-Pantrossi Region, 04/08/14)

Photo 6.3: Small truck loaded with wood in Pariki Fulani camp in Gogounou

The uncontrolled logging, as mentioned above, was profitable for several actors. The local people, especially farmers, sell wood and the local and municipal authorities levy taxes. Several local development initiatives were achieved with the money coming from illegal logging. Many farmers and laborers were enriched locally. One can imagine how the business would be more profitable for the elites who invested in exporting the wood to China. Only Fulani herders could not afford to sell the wood that is also valuable to them. But their landless status plays against them. Since the target species are found in the Fulani settlements, farmers can go and sell those trees (Photo 6.3).  This is the case of Gida138 in Bligobi camp:

Only God has been able to save the one who cut down this tree on whose stump I stand. The history of logging is hard to tell; it is very sad. There is no more space to graze. These are the trees that are used to feed animals. Unfortunately, loggers have invaded the area to cut down all the trees. What I experienced here is very serious.

When logging started in the area, I was informed by friends, and every day I hear the noise of the machines everywhere. I then took my bike to see our village authority in order to be enlightened on the situation. He reassured me that no one will come into my field without having contacted me and

138 The informant has been anonymized.

obtained my consent beforehand. But, much to my surprise, loggers arrived one nice day in my camp to cut the trees that I kept for my animals. On the first day that they arrived, I begged them to stop cutting the trees, but they did not listen. When they tried to cut down the first tree, I hugged the tree to prevent it from being cut, but they told me that if I did not leave, they would saw me and the tree. As they started cutting with the machine [chainsaw], I finally left. Then, I tried in a gentle voice to persuade them to stop, but they ignored my sorrow and continued. They went to the tree that I liked most in my field, as it was the biggest and allowed me to feed a large part of my herd. I said and did everything I could to save this tree, but all efforts were in vain as I helplessly witnessed them cut it down. And they did not stop there; they went on to further cut about thirty *banuje [Pterocarpus erinaceus]* that day. My hope had completely collapsed; I realized that I have to live with the horror and shame towards my children, who will not grant me with any excuses if I do not leave as an inheritance a herd in good condition.  For five days, I pondered this project and, in my anger, I shared with a friend. Since I realized that village and district authorities were all accomplices, I stopped going to them. I went straight to pay for a liter of fuel that I poured on the tree that I liked the most, and I burnt it. I then reloaded my gun and I started to stand guard in the field to finish with the logger once he returned to collect the planks. Unfortunately, my friend went to inform the local head of the Fulani association and they have discouraged the logger from returning to my camp, and my plan was therefore foiled as well.

Over the past three years, if it was not God, there would already be a great war between Fulani herders and woodcutters. The machine [chainsaw] has finished the trees. Even now, when I hear its noise somewhere, it revolts me. I am not the only victim; you can go check elsewhere. (Gida, Bligobi, 07/05/14)

Gida's story about the removal of fodder trees on which he and his herds rely is not uncommon. He preferred to avenge his evildoer in the end, rather than admit to his family and community that he had anything to do with this shameful situation. Initially, however, he wanted to commit suicide in order to protect his Fulani identity, which is strongly attached to livestock. This kind of suicide option is common in Fulani communities whenever there are factors that attempt to undermine cultural values that are closely linked to their pastoral identity (cf. Guichard, 1990: 31; Diallo, 2004: 55). Logging is one of the major factors threatening pastoralism in the district of Gogounou, since *Masinije henyi leɗɗe*139. The Bariba farmers use their autochthony discourse against Fulani herders to sell the trees that the latter rely on to

139 "The machine finished the bush."