This thesis analyzes the dynamics of urban agriculture development in the city of Bobo-Dioulasso in Burkina Faso. Through a systemic approach centered on the city-agriculture interactions, it aims to understand how farmers succeed in living and cultivating within the city and the way urban agriculture can be integrated into the urban system. This integration can be economic, socio-spatial, natural, technical, and political. In each of these dimensions of integration, arrangements among actors are a central factor of the permanence of agriculture in the city: it is the central hypothesis of this thesis. In the first part, the thesis focuses on the evolution of the links between the city and the agriculture since the founding of the city, and describes the diversity of agricultural dynamics taking place in the city and its urban fringe. The development of Bobo-Dioulasso, a commercial hub for agricultural products, is strongly linked to the regional agricultural dynamism. Urban and regional dynamics have favored the multifaceted development of urban agriculture. This agriculture developed, transformed and adapted to urban dynamics and is now practiced by a multitude of urban actors. In a second step, this thesis studies the agricultural practices and socio-spatial arrangements between actors. These urban farmers, through arrangements, succeed in maintaining contrasted forms of urban agriculture in the city: on the one hand, gardeners, through a logic of mobility within the urban space and arrangements with both institutional actors and input suppliers, access to resources that are essential for them to keep on conducting their activity. [etc.]
