Sorghum and cowpea intercropping, a traditional practice in sudano-sahelian zone with low crop yields: What farmers are doing and potential improvements

Cereal-legume intercropping is a common practice for sustainable agricultural intensification. However, crop yields in intercropping systems remain low in Sahelian and sudano-sahelian regions of Burkina Faso. This study aimed at characterizing the most common intercropping systems of the region, identifying the most limiting factors and do improvement suggestions. Focus group discussions, surveys on 170 households and monitoring of 80 farmer plots were carried out in three municipalities in the Centre-north region of Burkina Faso. The traditional intercropping by sowing cowpea and sorghum in the same seed hole was the most dominant system (98%). Local crop varieties were the most used (92% for sorghum and 67% for cowpea) in this system. Sorghum and cowpea productivities were highly variable and low with an average grain yield of 416 kg/ha and 240 kg/ha, respectively. Multivariate analyses permitted to identify household, soils, and crop management systems typologies. Important discriminating variables were also identified. Among these factors, sorghum yields were influenced by the number of persons in the household (p=0.001), number of traditional plowing tools owned (p=0.002), type of off-farm activities (p=0.005), soil silt content (p=0.0008) and soil types (p=0.01). While cowpea yields were more influenced by the number of small ruminants (p=0.03), number of traditional plowing tools owned (p=0.008), types of off-farm activities (p=0.01), soil total nitrogen (p=0.001) and organic matter contents (p=0.004). Management systems proved to have less impact on sorghum and cowpea yields, improvement of system's performance could be achieved by diversifying the varieties used.