In the Banikoara district of the west African country of Benin, cotton is king. Just as hunting is etched into the collective identity of the local Bariba people, the community has been defined by growing “white gold” in recent years. Other crops such as corn and peanuts are also grown, but cotton earns such a high market price that almost every family – farming families as well as herdsmen – plants cotton now. This has supplanted the traditional agricultural system, which relied on long-term fallowing, which left fields to recover fertility over 10-15 year periods.
While cotton is the most important cash crop, cattle, milk, and cheese sales are important sources of income for traditional pastoralists such as the Fulani. Land clearing for cotton production has now extended to areas traditionally used for livestock grazing, forcing pastoralists to travel farther to find suitable grazing ground. That farmers cannot afford sufficient fertilizer for their cotton fields forces them to clear more and more land, further squeezing livestock production. Ensuring the long-term viability of both cotton farming and cattle herding is a major challenge for local people.
Corridors increase livestock productivity by providing access to nutritious pasture and watering points, and indirectly benefit agriculture by ensuring a healthy supply of cattle for animal traction, manure, and a secondary income source for farmers. The corridors contribute to enhanced biodiversity as well, since they tend to have higher floral species richness than permanently cultivated land. Additionally, they can act as passageways and permanent habitats for species such as seed dispersers and pollinators who perform important ecosystem services. Corridors may also improve timber and non-timber forest product production and positively influence microclimatic conditions.
