BURUNDI: Population Growth and Poor Farming Methods Weigh on the Land

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jérôme Bigirimana

BUJUMBURA, Aug 14 2007 (IPS) - In Busoni, northern Burundi, the Mbarushimana clan is receiving a hard lesson in the limits of natural resources. Three sons, and other relatives, are trying to survive on land inherited from their father, amidst doubts that the small property is up to the task of supporting them.

“We are…heirs of a property of one hectare, to be shared between the three of us. We are busy having children…in an uncontrolled way. Is this to say that an entire family will live only from one hectare? What will be become of our children?” asks Sylvestre Mbarushimana, one of the sons, who fears the children will become landless, and even find themselves living on the streets.

As with the Mbarushimanas, so with many others in Burundi. Subsistence farmers in this small Central African country are struggling to find land to cultivate.

The result? Plots are subdivided to meet the needs of growing families, which over-exploit the portions of land they receive, leading to soil degradation and its attendant problems. Farmers are also starting to plant on barely arable land, areas previously reserved for pasture, and to encroach on forests.

“Land is currently under pressure in Burundi. Agricultural land is not just insufficient…it no longer has the quality necessary to give good harvests,” Salvator Ndabirorere, co-ordinator of the National Programme of Action Against Land Degradation, told IPS.

Burundi has a population of almost eight million – about double what it was in 1980 – and a surface area of 27,834 square kilometres; this gives the nation a population density of 270 inhabitants per square kilometre, according to government figures. The West African state of Benin, with a similar sized population, has a density of 70 inhabitants per square kilometre.

But for Emmanuel Nshimirimana, an independent environmental consultant, the problems relating to land use cannot be attributed to rapid population growth alone. He claims they are also a result of “lack of agricultural inputs, of the lack of effective equipment, of bad agricultural practices and of a high rate of illiteracy that hampers the receptiveness of the subsistence farmer vis-à-vis innovations.”

According to the latest United Nations Human Development Report, Burundi had an adult literacy rate of about 59 percent in 2004.

The National Programme of Action Against Land Degradation was approved by government two years ago; it lays out several strategies to fight poverty, and actions for land management. The programme also focuses on the creation of employment in sectors other than agriculture.

However, population expert Evariste Ngayimpenda believes more needs to be done. “While there is not a clear national land policy, nothing will be able to slow this pressure on the land,” he told IPS. According to the 2006 Human Development Report, Burundi’s population is set to top 10 million by 2015, at a growth rate of just under three percent.

Failure to address land problems may have consequences that extend beyond soil degradation, to acts of violence. Certain Burundians fear that disputes over land will cause ethnic tensions to flare. Several cases of planned killings relating to land have already been reported.

Tutsis have long been at odds with the majority Hutu group in this country. This prompted various outbreaks of violence after independence in 1962, most recently a civil war of more than a decade from which the country is still recovering.

A complex negotiation process, mediated in part by South Africa, led to a power-sharing government in 2001. While Tutsis are a minority in Burundi, they have traditionally exercised political and military dominance in the country.

Two years ago, a party led by former Hutu rebel Pierre Nkurunziza – the Force for the Defence of Democracy – won legislative polls. Nkurunziza was later elected president.

The return of Burundian refugees who fled conflict in their country is complicating land matters still further.

“By November 2006 about 33,000 Burundian refugees returned from years in Tanzania, thousands fewer than in 2005, leaving roughly 400,000 Burundian refugees in Tanzania. Fear of food shortages and continued insecurity seem to account for the decline in returns,” noted the New York-based Human Rights Watch in its 2007 World Report.

“The return of refugees has multiplied conflicts over land ownership, flooding the justice system with land cases.”