Abstract
Since colonization, West African transport corridors drew an economic dependence on space towards global market. Massive imports of manufactured goods are not balanced by the export of raw materials. The African market is not yet the market for Africans and this generally hampers territorial development. In the transport corridor between Ouagadougou and Accra, in West Africa, the challenges of regional integration and food security are crystallizing in the staple food circuits. The exchanges that take place there regulate the mobility of foodstuffs between places. In the space constituted by Burkina Faso and Ghana, characterized by an ecological gradient between the Sahel and the coast that strongly differentiates agricultural potentialities, the thesis puts these challenges in perspective with territorial development. She analyzes the inclusive potential of merchant staple food circuits through the example of yam, maize and cowpea in the corridor that connects Ouagadougou to Accra. After analyzing the transactional practices of these circuits based on surveys carried out with traders and transporters in the field, we simulate potential exchanges using a gravity model based on data relating to production, commerce, and consumption, but also to road accessibility of space. Between food availability and household demand, locating these exchanges and their paths questions the articulation of the food trade scales and the complementarity of places and activities with regard to the links between agriculture, trade and transport identified as carriers of spatially inclusive development. In a context of secondary cities, margins and borders, our approach explores the spatial interactions between surplus and deficit areas in order to propose technical recommendations with operational and political scope to contribute to the reflection on regional integration and security food.