Perennial grain crops in the West Soudanian Savanna of Mali: perspectives from agroecology and gendered spaces

ABSTRACT

Perennial grain crops may play an important role in environmentally sound and socially just food systems for Africa. We study the future possibility of integrating perennial grains into Malian farming systems from the perspective of agroecology, and more specifically using a gendered space approach. We interviewed 72 farmers across the sorghum-growing region of Mali. We found that perennial grains offer a vision for transforming human relations with nature that mirrors the resource sharing of customary land tenure, including patterns of extensive and intensive land use in time and space. Women interviewees identified a broad set of potential advantages and challenges to perennial grain production. Advantages include reduced labour, saving seed, and improving food security. Women farmers were concerned about livestock, water access, and resource limitations. We argue that perennial grains may increase access to land and natural resources for women farmers. Perennial grains may improve soil quality, reduce labour early in the rainy season, and provision more resources from fallow lands. Pastoralists stand to benefit from improved pastures in the dry season. We conclude that investments are needed to develop viable crop types in consideration of the complexity of West African farming systems and the local needs of women farmers and pastoralists.

KEYWORDS:

• Africa
• agroecology
• gender
• Mali
• perennial grains

Acknowledgements

We express our gratitude to the Malian farmers who graciously welcomed us, as well as to various individuals at ICRISAT – Mali and IER – ECOFIL who offered us logistical assistance in the field.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Paul Rogé http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2298-5958

Notes

1 Throughout this manuscript, we refer to the sorghum-growing region of Mali as ‘the region’, fully aware that in other contexts the region may refer to West Africa or administrative units within Mali.

2 A Cercle is a second level administrative unit in Mali named after its major city. In Bougouni, we visited the villages of Madina, Niaraka, Dièba, Djadoubala, Sibirila, and Flola. In Dioïla, we visited the villages of N’Domi, Fadabougou, Djondougou, Tula, Tiendo, and Zeta. In Tominian, we visited the villages of Seoulasso, Sokoro, Kagnan, Diaga, Minso, and Hasso.

3 Net primary productivity is a vegetation metric that measures the amount of light energy that can be converted directly into plant biomass (Heinsch et al., 2003).

4 Note that we did not collect demographic information from interviewees about people that helped them farm. Therefore, the classification of youth refers to people from a younger generation, such as child, niece, or nephew.

5 Poisoning is likely due to biochemical properties of ratooned sorghum and millet, such as high-cyanide content.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation [grant number OPP1076311].