The Focali report presents the process and the results from a workshop titled “The future of parklands” held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on 17-20 October in 2011. The workshop brought together researchers from Burkina Faso and Sweden. The aim was to discuss possible scenarios for agricultural parklands and based on these scenarios identify research needs. The discussions at the workshop developed four different schematic scenarios. The aim of the four scenarios was to present a range of possible and different scenarios to freely stimulate new thoughts and ideas about future challenges, gaps in knowledge and research issues. Since research on food production has to take a long-term perspective a time horizon of 40 years (2050) was chosen for the scenarios.

The four constructed scenarios were:

1) Business as usual

2) Foreign/corporate agriculture and land grab

3) Mixed systems

4) Parklands prevail

Several of the scenarios envision a shift from small - to larger - scale agricultural production. This may have environmental as well as socio-economic effects. On a national level, the extent and magnitude of this shift will depend largely on how related policies and regulations are framed and implemented.

The aim of the workshop was to identify critical research issues. In the discussions questions were therefore asked about how research can enable the achievement of the positive developments envisioned or help to avoid negative developments. Based on the scenarios for parklands and agriculture in Burkina Faso, that are described in the report, four research areas were consequently identified as critical for future food security and poverty reduction in the country.

The report can be downloaded here