In Mali, cotton production has a major impact on the quality of people's food. The use of chemical pesticides poses a real risk to humans and the soil.
Mali is one of Africa's leading cotton-producing countries, providing a valuable source of income for both rural communities and the state, which derives substantial benefits from the sale of by-products through the Compagnie Malienne pour le Développement du Textile, the state-owned company responsible for organising production and marketing.
In this country, if we accept that "white gold", as it is nicknamed, contributes to improving the well-being of local communities, the fact remains that they are no better off in terms of food, i.e. they eat badly and are in poorer health.
Maize, the staple diet
The cropping systems of family farms in Mali are dependent on rainfall and are based on cereal production. Cotton is a strategic crop within these systems for farmers in the cotton-growing zone, where maize is grown in regions with annual rainfall in excess of eight hundred millimetres. Maize is a cereal that is highly prized by the
population for food. It is used to prepare the main meal, Tô, a paste made from maize flour mixed with water and intended to be eaten cooked, mainly in the form of a slice dipped in okra sauce or baobab leaves seasoned with dried fish, sometimes very spicy.
For this reason, the Malian textile development company has been working for years to develop cotton growing by fertilising the soil through a system of cotton-maize-maize-cotton rotation, with maize benefiting from the after-effects of the mineral fertiliser applied to the cotton plant.
In Mali today, agriculture is carried out under unpredictable conditions, with major risks of drought and flooding due to the effects of the climate crisis, marked by rising temperatures, falling rainfall, longer dry periods and seasonal shifts, all of which accentuate the fragility of ecosystems. As a result, the Malian company for the development of textiles aims to ensure the sustainability of cropping systems through the use of chemical insecticides to protect cotton against pests, and mineral and organic fertilisers to a lesser extent, as farmers are aware of the importance of organic fertiliser, but the lack of livestock means that they do not apply it.
Chemical fertilisation in question
As a result, people pay the price for these systems. During my work testing chemical insecticides with farmers in the village of Kléssokoro, in the Bougouni cotton-growing area, where I have been visiting regularly for the past decade, I found that they were facing identical problems for which they had no answers. The children suffer from KwashiorkorThis is due to the lack of protein-rich food due to low purchasing power. What's more, the soil has no "strength". The wild nature of the soil is dead, a victim of mineral fertilisers and chemical insecticides.
To caricature, the more the Compagnie Malienne pour le développement du textile intervenes, the more production increases. The more production increases, the more unbalanced the market becomes. The more unbalanced the market, the more the farmer has to sell, and the more he has to sell, the less he can satisfy his food needs.
Rethinking strategies with people in mind
So by rethinking food systems through the integration of solidarity economy strategies with local development, we can protect nature, meet climate challenges and improve food security and nutrition.
The aim is to develop entrepreneurship projects based on the solidarity economy with an ecological objective of food and nutritional security and poverty reduction through income-generating activities, and in which people feel bound by a sense of responsibility and common interests.
That's why I set up the " Alliance bio "The project, entitled "Strengthening the resilience of households in the rural community of Kléssokoro and their access to the market system through organic market gardening", focuses on six areas: training in composting, improving local poultry, supporting reforestation, green tourism, fattening (1) sheep and goats, and selling local poultry.
The general objectives of the project are to improve the socio-economic situation of the women in the village and the region, and to preserve or restore the ecological balance of the area.
At our Alliance Bio base, located on 300 square metres of private land on the outskirts of Bamako in the airport zone, we reproduce the local variety of organic maize called "Bambara" in the local language during the winter. Chêdougouni" . This is a 60-day short-cycle variety that we are distributing on a voluntary basis to small-scale producers so that they can earn an income in the off-season, i.e. after the rainy season, when fresh maize cobs cost twice as much as in the rainy season. This is one way of ensuring food security and reducing the impact of climate change on poor rural communities in Mali.
The Alliance Bio association is qualified to offer its members income opportunities enabling them to have sustainable employment through its self-financing.
However, due to a lack of support, the project never got off the ground and I feel frustrated by the lack of altruism.
1 - Fattening is defined as the preparation or conditioning of sheep and goats for slaughter. It can be carried out on pasture or in stalls.
Text : Chaka BERTHE, Agricultural engineer, Consultant Trainer Expert in institutional support and administrative management - Bamako - Mali
mail : berthechaka770@gmail.com
Photos : as indicated
Opening photo : Fred Moreno/ Unsplash
