CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
Background of the study
The development and success of any agricultural project start from the organisation of the producers into different groups of farmers. During the implementation of the Millennium Development Programme in Africa, the cooperative approach was adopted to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and promote decent work in Africa, with the aim to promote self-help initiatives and mutual assistance in communities (Wanyama, Develtere, & Pollet, 2009).
Development cannot be effective without good organization at the grassroots level. Therefore, organizing producers into groups for better production must be a major concern for all. The World Bank, at the beginning of structural adjustment, stated that all governments should get out of agricultural operation and “put farmers in charge” (Rondot & Collion, 2001).
Farmer-based organisations are defined as an association of farmers who combine their efforts to perform business activities by pooling resources and joint management (Kovavic, Juracak, & Zutinic, 2000). According to Stockbridge, Dorward, & Kydd, (2003), to improve rural service delivery, economic growth, and poverty reduction among farmers, Governments and NGOs encourage the establishment of FBOs as a strategy to enable smallholder farmers to benefit from the support of agricultural institutions. These FBOs represent the link between the producers and the supporting programmes, and it also serves as a voice of the smallholder farmers through which they express their needs that can be found difficult as an individual.
In developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan African countries, agriculture is a major source of revenue, livelihood and constitute the principal foreign exchange earner (Badian et al. 1995). Mali is not an exception. Thus, in Mali about 60% of the population live in rural areas (FAO, 2016) where the main activity is agriculture dominated by smallholder individual
farmers producing staple crops such as maize, sorghum, millet, rice, and using traditional methods and low resource technologies, with limiting access to agricultural inputs and services. The smallholder farmers in Mali face challenges resulting from the weakness of the individual farmer which serve as constraints to increase their productivity. These constraints are access to agricultural inputs, agricultural credit, agricultural training, effective incentive from the State among others, to improve their productivity and increase agricultural output and meet the production needed.
Thus, to tackle these challenges, the Malian government has taken the initiative to organize the producers at the grassroots level called “Ton Villageois” (Association of Villagers) since the 1970s through the cotton sector to better structure the Malian farmers (Bélières, Benoit-cattin, Barret, Djouara, & Kébé, 2008). The emphasis, however, was on cotton production with the aim of self-management of the producer organizations by the farmers whilst organisations around other crops had been neglected.
From independence (1960) to the present day, the three successive republics (from centralized state to liberalization) have placed a strong emphasis on agriculture as the country’s basic development sector (Samake et al, 2007). Each of these republics endeavour to empower producers by promoting the cooperation of the producers. The problem to date has been the focus largely on the cotton sector, which is co-managed by the CMDT and the OHVN, whilst the smallholder farmers dominate in food crops production such as maize, sorghum, millet, and rice.
The World Bank’s Development Report (World Bank, 2008) indicates that the democratic openness has allowed producer organizations to grow and influence governance over time. In Mali, however, the transformation concerns the entire rural development sector, with public initiatives to modify institutions at the national, sectoral and local levels, with greater
involvement of producers and their professional organizations (Agricultural Orientation Law: French acronym: LOA).
In recent years, the interest in maize production by producers has increased. This has resulted in increased formation of Farmer-Based Organizations across the country. This may, on one hand, be due to the high yield of maize, which can reach up to 9Tonnes/ha depending on the variety (Maize programme IER, 2015). On the other hand, NGOs, agribusiness enterprises and agricultural research centres are promoting maize production. These organisations are promoting maize production because it has a relatively short vegetative cycle (70 – 120 days depending on the variety) as well as high yield which can be adopted as a strategy to be safe from climate vagaries but also a solution for food security in the region. In figure 1.1, the trend in the harvested area of maize in Mali shows that the harvested areas of maize have increased between 2000 and 2014.
Figure 1. 1 Trend of harvested area of maize maize production in Mali Source: FAO country Stat This shows that maize production has become incontestably one of the major staple crops in Mali in addition to rice, millet and sorghum. But the question is that how do farmers perceive maize farmer organizations to improve their productivity and their incomes? How far has government paid attention to smallholder farmers producing maize in term of their organizations like the cotton sector? However, there is a need to access how membership of
maize farmer-based organizations can help improve productivity of small maize farmers in Mali
