The conflicts arise because of rapid population growth (the average Burkinabe woman bears 5.7 children during her lifetime, according to 2012 World Bank figures), internal and cross-border migration, and soil degradation, all of which put pressure on the limited arable land.
Clarifying property ownership laws would go a long way to resolving these conflicts. At the heart of the tension is the uneasy
co-existence of customary and modern law, especially in the countryside. Burkina Faso has a largely rural population: only 28.2% of the country's 16.9m people live in cities, according to 2013 World Bank figures.
Rules dating back to the ancient era of the Mossi kingdom and other pre-colonial political systems remain powerful across Burkina Faso. According to most traditional practices, land belongs to the leaders of the country's original inhabitants, the "land chiefs", who may lend it to non-indigenous people.
State law, however, does not recognise these customary practices. According to modern Burkinabe legislation, land is either state property or privately owned. Traditional practices often prevail, however, because weak government institutions have failed to enforce the country's laws, especially in rural areas. The Burkinabe Agrarian and Land Reorganisation law (RAF), adopted in 1984 under the Marxist president, Thomas Sankara, made the state the default owner of Burkina Faso's land. The state could give operating rights to mayors, governors and other modern local authorities or to private individuals as it wished.
During the 1990s the government revised the RAF and reintroduced the concept of private property. These revisions were a reaction to the migrants coming from other parts of the country or the sub-region, including the mass return of former Burkinabe emigrants fleeing Côte d'Ivoire's civil war and targeted violence. The newcomers began settling on lands without abiding by traditional customs. They argued that "land belonged to the state, therefore it belonged to everyone," according to Djibril Traoré, an agronomist who authored a UN-sponsored study on land reform in 1999.
These conflicting visions of land ownership have created grey areas with many toxic repercussions.
Intergenerational tensions between youth under 35 and their elders are a common consequence of these shadowy areas, according to Germain Nama, a well-known journalist and commentator in Burkina Faso. "Some youth sell land without consulting the elders, which often fosters tensions," Mr Nama said. "This type of conflict is very frequent, because our youth is thirsty for money."
Modern commercial transactions, such as leasing and selling land, are becoming more and more popular among rural Burkinabe. This is especially true in the south-west region, where the proliferation of gold mining and agribusiness (in cotton, cereals and cattle) has induced owners of small plots to sell their land. A few powerful businessmen, some with political connections, now monopolise huge swathes of land.
For example, in the village of Neboun in the fertile south-western Sissili province, most of the land is divided into a dozen large agricultural complexes spread over hundreds of hectares. Local inhabitants who sold their land languish without income or property to leave to their children because many of the large farms are mechanised or require skills they do not have.
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