In Burkina Faso, the vulnerability of farmers to climate risks and variations in the pricing of staple foods is a serious problem for rural areas. Warrantage is used in West Africa to describe the inventory credit system: granting credit to farmers with grain as collateral in secure warehouses, where a third independent party holds the collateral on behalf of both the creditor and the debtor. Warrantage could contribute to increasing the resilience of farming communities to shocks, improving food insecurity. Oxfam in Burkina Faso and the Federation of Agricultural Professionals of Burkina Faso (FEPAB) support warrantage in the south-western zone of Burkina Faso.

This report examines the contribution of warrantage to resilience in the light of the Oxfam Framework for Resilient Development: it contributes to the ability to absorb shocks through the reduction of harmful coping strategies, and the ability to adapt through livelihood diversification. However, its contribution is not on the same scale for all socioeconomic groups. Benefits are limited by the intermittent participation of very poor and poor groups; they depend on climatic hazards which determine the quantity of crops; and the fact that poor farmers often do not solicit credit. Unequal power relations between socio-economic groups and between women and men should also be considered in interventions.