While the benefits of farming activities in large West African cities are starting to be recognised within the scientific community, Laure Le Gall believes that urban agriculture is still struggling to find its place within public policy. The few efforts that have been made by planners in places like Ouagadougou belie a desire to contain such activities, or even to relegate them to the urban fringes. In a context where urban space comes at a premium, agriculture is only occasionally considered

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... legitimate form of land use in the large cities of West Africa. Although urban farming enjoys an extensive de facto existence, in the most fragile and vulnerable interstitial spaces of the city, its social, economic and environmental role struggles to be recognised by local planning policies, which, inspired by Western urban models, have long separated and distinguished urban activities from those considered exclusively rural, among them farming.