Objective: To examine the cross-sectional and inter-temporal validity of the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) for rural households in Burundi. Design: Longitudinal survey about food security and agricultural production, individually administered by trained interviewers in June 2007 and 2012. Setting: Ngozi, north of Burundi. Subjects: Three hundred and fourteen household heads were interviewed. Results: Tobit models showed that the HFIAS was significantly correlated with objective measures of food security, in this case total annual food production (P < 0·01), livestock keeping (P < 0·01) and coffee production (P < 0·01) in both 2007 and 2012. This confirms that the HFIAS is cross-sectionally valid and corroborates the findings of previous studies. However, while total food production decreased by more than 25 % in terms of energy between 2007 and 2012, households reported an improvement in their perceived food security over the same period, with the HFIAS decreasing from 13·9 to 10·8 (P < 0·001). This finding questions the inter-temporal validity of the HFIAS. It may be partly explained through response shifts, in which households assess their own food security status in comparison to that of their peers. Conclusions: The evidence from our study suggests that the HFIAS is crosssectionally valid, but may not be inter-temporally valid, and should not be used as a single indicator to study temporal trends in food security.

Livestock contributes significantly to peoples' livelihoods in developing countries. Yet, most studies focus on dairy cattle, overlooking the fact that many smallholder farmers in mixed-cropping systems prefer to keep goats, sheep, pigs or poultry rather than cattle. For this paper we applied a multivariate probit model to a unique dataset from a national, representative, agricultural survey in Burundi, to estimate the determinants of livestock keeping. We found that wealthier households keep more livestock, but that population density and access to markets are also key determinants. Moreover, in densely populated regions, even the wealthiest households prefer smaller animals to cattle, as the pressure on land is high and access to pastures is limited. This has important policy implications as it raises questions as to whether the focus on dairy cattle, which has been adopted in most NGO and governmental development programs in Sub-Saharan Africa, is justified.

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Taking into account the current understanding of a system by farmers is an important starting point in every project aiming at the economic and social development of human beings. In the process of organic certification of coffee growers, training sessions on various topics are conducted. In addition to these sessions, there are field visits to farms by experts. And it is most often done through a top-down approach. A household survey was carried out on a purposive sample of households in the zone of the central plateaus in Burundi. Data were collected using a questionnaire through smartphones. Data analysis was carried out using IBM SPSS Statistics software by calculating means, frequencies and cross-analyses of variables. Results show that, besides bananas that are deliberately considered as shading crops, Grevillea robusta is the most frequent shade tree which is present on 62% of coffee plots. It is followed by an indigenous tree: Ficus sp. which is present on 14.6% of plots, and a fruit tree, Persea americana present on 13.9% of plots. The effects of shade trees on soil properties are well recognized by farmers. For their search of certification (75% of farmers are involved in the process of organic certification), chemicals application is banned. Farmers use a locally-made biopesticide decoction. They prepare it from a set of five plants: Tephrosia vogelii, Solanum aculeastrum, Neorautanenia mitis, Capsicum frutescens, and Tithonia diversifolia. This research has proven that the integration of shade trees in coffee plots is a reality in the region.