The majority of the people of West Africa are engaged in agriculture and related activities. As such, land is an important factor of agricultural production. But land scarcity and fragmentation in the wake of population growth, climatic variability and environmental deterioration have undermined large-scale agricultural production.
This has worsened the poverty and food insecurity situation in the subregion.
With migration as an integral feature of the socioeconomic dynamics of most societies, people have–apart from other responses–resorted to migration in search of fertile land and economic opportunities.