ABSTRACT
Since the early 1980s, improved traditional planting pits or zai" (in More) have been rapidly adopted by farmers in the Yatenga region of Burkina Faso. Using zai", thousands of hectares of degraded land have been brought back to productivity. It is striking that while in other regions of the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso this relatively simple technique has hardly been adopted, in certain regions of Mali and Niger the zai"are rapidly becoming popular (see Hassan, this volume). Although some projects in the Yatenga region have been actively promoting the use of zai; most farmers who adopt this technique do not receive any project support. This case study describes the major characteristics of the zai" and analyses their advantages and disadvantages.
