Labor and tenure study in three village perimeters : Bakel, Moudery, and Selling

Each village wanted its own perimeter to alleviate food shortages and losses of household revenues induced by drought conditions. In the Bakel area many of the village perimeters were created under the USAID Bakel Small Irrigated Perimeters project (BSIP). If the project was able to resolve the issue of water availability, the village perimeters are still confronted with many constraints which hinder their development. Amongst those problems, there are the weights of the traditional tenure systems, the social organization and the labor shortage. The latter aspect is of real concern because in recent years with better rainfall conditions, there is an increasing competition for household labor between traditional agriculture and irrigated perimeters, both of which are carried out during the same period. This competitive situation is worsened by the increased male outmigration and the restructuring of SAED which in its new policy does not provide input credits to the farmers. Thus because of the situation, a series of questions are raised such as: what are the labor allocation strategies adopted by households? Which type of cropping system is prioritized by the farmers? Are women playing a greater role in household agriculture production? Or do the households have other compensating strategies to overcome labor constraints rather than relying on women"s labor? How do these adaptations affect access to cultivable land and to the tenure arrangements made to develop those lands? There are also other questions that are of importance dealt with in the study. The aim of this study is to take a look at the labor constraints and the different labor allocation strategies undertaken by households. It will be limited, however, as the study concentrated in only three villages: Bakel, Moudery, and Selling. Nevertheless, these villages will five an indications irrigated agriculture in three different areas: a urban area (Bakel), a traditional Soninke village (Moudery), and a Pulaar village (Selling). (Author abstract)