Seasonal Migration
The majority of the population of Burkina Faso, about 86%, rely on farming for their livelihood. Insufficient rainfalls, together with the rapid decline of the quality of the farm land, result in the mass movements of people in search of new and fertile farming land.
This usually happens after a number of consecutive years of bad harvests. These mass population shifts are more frequent from the Northern to the South-western areas, where the lands are more fertile and there is a more regular annual rainfall. These shifts can last up to several years and is almost a rural exodus.
Apart from these massive shifts of entire populations, there are also seasonal migrations or crop settlements.
A crop settlement is a site where one or more families leave their usual homes and settle in farming areas during the rainy season. This lasts from 3-5 months. Fields may be quite far from their homes, as the population rate is high and farmers have to move where the land is fertile. Walking long distances every day is difficult for women and children, and transport is not available to everyone.
It is easier, therefore, for people to settle temporarily in their fields for several months and return home at the end of the harvest, bringing with them all their crops.
The inhabitants of the village of Soukoundougou in the Bam province are obliged to do these kind of seasonal migrations. The place where its community settles is called “Pouroogo” which means “houses of fields”. It is occupied as soon as the first rains fall, and the village becomes a crop settlement community. Everybody except the old people, leave for the fields where crop settlements will be built just for a few months.
There you find a wide variety of huts and houses. Everybody there is active, and involved in the farming, men, women and healthy young people will work hard, ploughing, sowing and harvesting. Younger children look after their siblings while their mothers work. At this time of the year, only a few people will be found in the village, mostly disabled or those people who care for the old.
After the rainy season, the farmers return from the settlements with their crops and once again the village becomes alive and all the community are once again united.
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