From Capture to Caloric Sovereignty

Abstract

This paper uses Burkina Faso’s recent agricultural performance as a test case for a broader hypothesis: that loosening Western institutional capture – military, financial, and narrative – can rapidly increase a state’s caloric sovereignty, while long-term IMF/World Bank structuring correlates with persistent food import dependence and vulnerability. I frame this through the Extraction–Inversion Architecture (EIA): extraction of value, coercive constraint, and narrative inversion that relocates blame to the victim society. Using a simple comparative design, I contrast Burkina Faso (post-2019 insurgency crisis, post-French military exit, AES realignment) with three cases: Haiti (catastrophic collapse under long IMF/US tutelage), Ghana (average “reformer” under a 2023 IMF programme), and Morocco (high-performing but structurally import-dependent “model pupil”). FAO and official data indicate Burkina’s cereal production at about 6.1 million tonnes in 2024 (20 percent above the five-year average) with provisional 2025–2026 figures suggesting 7.14 million tonnes and 126.4 percent coverage of national cereal needs. I show how changes in security doctrine, land allocation, and budget focus translate into caloric coverage, price stability, and space for productive innovation, whereas heavily “programme-managed” states remain structurally dependent on imports and vulnerable to shocks.