Conventional knowledge assumes that production of cash/export crops jeopardizes
household food crop production in developing economies, and above all, mars women’s potential
for economic autonomy. In Southwest Burkina Faso, observations in cotton-producing
households appear to challenge such assumptions. Cotton is the driver of food crop production;
and members of cotton farming households operate within a framework of negotiations and
bargaining to attain production objectives. Still more, some developments in the cotton sector
opened unexpected avenues for some women, in Southwest Burkina, to produce cotton
independently from the conventional cotton farms owned by the male head of household. This
dissertation asks why some smallholder farmers in Southwest Burkina choose to grow cotton in
addition to commonly grown food-crops, and how this impacts relations between spouses, and
parents and children within the household. It reaches the conclusion that a host of complex
factors influence smallholder farmers’ decision to produce cotton, which requires looking
beyond the need for greater cash incomes. The research methodology combines participant
observations, informal interviews, conversations, focus groups, life histories, and social
interactions, with formal surveying methods. This study contributes to ongoing theoretical
debates on intrahousehold relations, and women’s access to resources in a growing cash crop
economy in Africa, and the Global South. It also revisits the discussions phrased in terms of
agency and rationality in actions among farming households. More broadly, it can contribute to
reconcile cash and food cropping, and suggest tools for the economic empowerment of rural
women through their full integration in cash farming.