MAIN FACTS ON THE AGRICULTURAL EVOLUTION AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN MALI

1. MAIN FACTS ON THE AGRICULTURAL EVOLUTION AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN MALI Document prepared for the World Bank RuralStruc Program launching workshop, M’Bour-Senegal- 11-13 April 2006

2. IMPORTANCE OF THE RURAL SECTOR • Enclave country; 1240 000 km2; 11 millions inhabitants • Rural sector: 45% of GDP; 3,6% average annual growth (1994-1998), higher than the demographic growth rate; 80% active population; 7,5 millions rural; productive activities 91% of population on 30% of the country’s surface. • Main productions: cereals, cotton, livestock; almost 630,000 small EAF: average size of 4,5 ha for 9 to 10 people; 40% of EAF dispose of less than 3 ha.

3. PRODUCTIONS • Agricultural production (2002-2003):2,53 millions tons topped by dry cereals (millet, sorghum, corn), then rice (28%) and food vegetables: beans, peanuts, voandzou (10%) • Industrial cultures, topped by cotton, and including also sugar cane and flower and fruit productions. • Livestock: • Meat: country’s self-sufficiency (51% of bovine meat, 31% of small ruminants meat, 18% of avian and other species). • Milk: intensive and semi-intensive farming around the cities, extensive farming in the rest of the country, many imports of dairy products (on average 13 billion FCFA per year).

4. PRODUCTIONS (cont) • Fishing/Pisciculture: Among the first African producers of soft water fish, with aprox. 100.000 tons per year, 4,2% of GDP: Niger River, Senegal River and other fluvial basins.  • Natural resources: rich and varied natural potential. Alarming process of degradation and progressive desertification, in Sahalian and Saharan areas (around 3/4 of the territory); domestic, industrial and artisan productions.

5. EVOLUTION OF AGRICULTURAL AND RURAL POLICIES • Period 1960-1968 • Period 1968-1980 • Period 1980-1992 • Period 1992-2005

6. Period 1960-1968 • Socialist type of development model (omnipresent State in economic life with the central objective of reinforcing the new State’s sovereignty through: • creation of a national currency, • construction of infrastructures for the opening up of the interior and the exterior of the country; • creation of State societies and enterprises in charge of economic activities (imports, commercialization and distribution of cereals and commodities of first necessity) Implementation of measures of economic policy performed through five-year development plans.

7. Period 1960-1968 (cont) • Agricultural policy • Peasants organization system in cooperatives (base cooperatives, mutual societies of development, federation of cooperatives). • Technical management through cooperatives, decentralized technical services (agriculture, livestock and water and forests) and specific programs by product: millet, peanut, cotton. • Creation of State societies and enterprises in charge of economic activities (import, commercialization, distribution of cereals and articles of first necessity, provision of credits to producers for inputs and equipments).

8. Period 1968-1980 • Abandon of the socialist approach of development in favor of an independent and planned economic model. Maintain of the approach of economic and social development plans. • Extension of the mandates of program-products through the creation of Rural Development Operations (ODR) with a certain autonomy management and in charge of the ensemble of functions of agricultural development: formation, vulgarization, agricultural credit (suppression of State societies), commercialization by other State societies. • The draught of 1972-73 perturbed this period and produced a reorientation of objectives in development in the quest for food sufficiency (command of water), reconstitution of livestock and reestablishment of the main economic and financial equilibriums.

9. Period 1980-1992 • Creation of the National Back for Agricultural Development (BNDA) in 1981 for a professionalization of the credit system, • Liquidation of State societies, • Partial State withdrawal in production and commercialization activities,

10. Period 1980-1992 (cont) • Implementation of the Cereal Market Restructuring Program (PRMC): • Liberalization of rice imports; • Suppression of scales of agricultural product prices and gradual adjustments of cereal prices; • Suppression of subsidies to inputs and consumption, export taxes and adoption of the principle of lowering import taxes; • Suppression of the economic police (except for ON) and liberalization of cereal trade and bigger implication of the economic operators in the sector. • Start up of the Agricultural Sector Structural Adjustment Program (PASA), as of 1990: • Sector reforms; • Studies on the restructuring of the ODRs. The events of March 1991 shocked the country and signaled the demands of the population for more democracy and freedom, transparence in public goods management and the participation in the management of the country.

11. Period 1992-2005 • Devaluation of the CFA Franc in 1994 ; • Adoption and implementation of the decentralization option • Pursuit of the adjustment measures, in particular: • Cereals market; • Adjustment of cotton producer prices to the world market prices; • State withdrawal from commercialization in favor of merchants and association groups; • Preeminent role of the Villages Associations (AV) in the responsibilities transferred; • Restructuring of the Niger Office; • Entry into force of the Common External Tariff (TEC) in the UEMOA countries.

12. Period 1992-2005 (cont) • Promotion of a modern and competitive agriculture: • Diversification of agricultural productions; • Reduction of the impact of climate risk through the control of water. • Revalorization of agro-ecological potential; • Development of a competitive agro-industrial sector, integrated in the sub-regional economy; • Planned implementation of the Agriculture Orientation Law (LOA)

13. Big challenges • Fight against poverty; • Food security; • Sustainable/rural land development; • Agriculture financing.