At the heart of the Sahel, Burkina Faso is an arid, landlocked country, facing multiple and interrelated challenges, stemming from climate change, food insecurity, increasing competition for land and armed conflicts. Recent years have been characterized by more extreme rains and flooding events, as well as longer droughts, while the clear-cutting of vegetative woody biomass for fuelwood and agriculture, and shortening of fallow periods have contributed significantly to large-scale land degradation and biodiversity loss, especially in the northern and eastern regions of Burkina Faso (Reij et al., 2005; Sylla et al., 2021). Recent studies indicate that an additional 105,000 to 470,000 ha of land are degrading year-on-year in Burkina Faso (Carlucci & Guzzetti, 2024; MEEVCC, 2018; FAO, 2025), compromising agricultural productivity and the livelihoods of the approximately 80% of Burkinabe who depend on farming and pastoralism. With a surge in conflicts and an increasing incidence of climate hazards, displacements in Burkina Faso have increased by over 7,000% since 2018. This is one of the fastest-growing displacement rates in the world, alongside Mozambique and Ukraine (Carlucci & Guzzetti, 2024). For the most part, rural populations remain very poor, food insecure and with low levels of formal education. Of the farmers interviewed for this study, 80% have never received any schooling.