Sustainable agriculture and the environment : Mali case study

Chapter 1 briefly describes the two key public agencies in the study zone -- the OHV du Niger (OHVN) and the Institut d'Economie Rurale (IER) -- along with the zone's farming systems. Chapter 2 discusses USAID assistance to national programs for sustainable agriculture, while Chapter 3 focusses on program outputs, especially USAID's contribution to institution building. Chapter 4 briefly reviews the technologies promoted by USAID and the (rather undependable) data on their adoption, and presents three case studies demonstrating the complex interplay of institutional, organizational, and economic factors that encourage (or inhibit) technology adoption. The final chapter examines issues related to the replicability, sustainability, efficiency, effectiveness, and impacts of USAID's sustainable agriculture interventions in Mali. The following lessons are noted. (1) The effectiveness of sustainable agriculture interventions does not depend on technology choice alone; issues of policy, sociology, investment in personnel and infrastructure, and empowerment are also important. In Mali, successful technology adoption resulted from the confluence of several factors: a strong functional literacy base; liberalized markets; public commitment to democratization and local-level empowerment; access to high-quality training in financial management and organizational skills; and ready access to markets. Active involvement of the commercial banking sector is especially noteworthy. (2) Synergisms among USAID-supported regional and national research programs (such as CIMMYT and ICRISAT) and regional extension organizations appear to increase the chances of technology elaboration and adoption. This is amply demonstrated in the cases of maize and doliki. (3) Technologies that seem most widely adopted are those for which farmers can readily observe a short-run payoff, e.g., rock lines or other simple soil conservation structures that visibly arrest erosion in fields that have already suffered serious damage, and organic fertilizers and disease- or pest-resistant cultivars which save farmers expenditures on agrochemicals. However, producers must first recognize a natural resource problem as serious before they are willing to take ameliorative steps. (4) Temporary subsidy or incentive programs may be necessary if farmers are unable to adopt natural resource conservation practices "until it is too late." However, care must be taken to avoid the tendency to give out "gifts." (5) Cultivars, technologies, or land-use practices that have a strong cognate in local cropping systems and practices stand a better chance of adoption than alien ones.