Real Lives: Cotton in Mali
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INTERVIEW: IBRAHIM COULIBALY
Ibrahim Coulibaly, 40, is the Director of External Affairs for the Association of Professional Producers of Mali (AOPP). This network of farmers represents the interests of over three million growers in over 150 different agricultural organizations. He is an expert on agriculture and has been working at AOPP since it was founded in 1993. In this interview he explains the challenges facing cotton farmers in Mali.
Can you explain the role of cotton in Mali's economy?
It's safe to say that the entire Malian economy revolves around cotton. It's the only export product in the country. It's true that we are also producers of livestock, producers of gold, but these really only play a small role in the national economy. Cotton is the most important in terms of space, with the largest production volume of any export product. So it's really very important.
The economy is too dependent on cotton. This is a source of great difficulties for farmers. They are more and more dependent on cotton—people go into debt to grow it, many farmers go deeply into debt. This year, many farmers won't earn enough to pay off their debts. Or it might be more serious: they might even stop farming entirely. Some people might leave and go to the city. This is how the rural exodus begins. When there is no money at home, young people often come to the city to try to find work and a little money. Often they never return.
We just visited the Fana area. What are the greatest difficulties for small cotton growers in Mali, and the cotton farmers we met in Fana?
What is important in Fana is the farmers tend to plant cotton before they plant any grain or cereal crop. This is important; because grain is grown for food security. So when the farmers plant cotton first, well you were there and may have noticed that the millet is not ready yet. And the rains are probably finished this year so this will be a lost crop. So a lot of families are going to have to buy grain. And if the cotton also did not produce much, because it's been so dry this year, these families are going to experience famine. This is one of the biggest worries today.
There's no irrigated cotton in Mali, all of it is grown with rainfall.
Farmers are concerned that the cost of their inputs like fertilizer are increasing as the price for cotton falls, and this is a real crisis for them.
The inflation affecting the price of inputs works against the interests of the farmers. It happens with the complicity of the government. For some years now the state has tried to disengage itself from everything. It no longer subsidizes production, and it used to intervene to support certain sectors. But that all stopped 20 years ago. There's been no aid to farmers since the Structural Adjustment Programme of the IMF and World Bank started. The state no longer supports anything. Since then, the price of inputs started to skyrocket, up and up. Farming tools like wheelbarrows get more expensive, fertilizer... each year it is more expensive. The price of inputs is a real problem, and if it gets higher every year, the profit margin, already small, gets even smaller.
How difficult is it to grow cotton compared to other crops?
Growing cotton is by far the most difficult.
If we look at what it takes to grow one hectare of corn compared to one hectare of cotton, there's no comparison. For corn, you just plant the seeds, you add the herbicide and fertilizer. It requires only a little bit of work. Cotton, on the other hand, you have to plant it, you have to weed it several times, you have to put on the fertilizer, you have to put on the pesticides and you have to harvest it by hand. The volume of work is maybe five times what it takes to grow one hectare of corn, in my opinion.
So why are farmers growing cotton if it is so much work and they are going into debt?
To start, cotton gets them fertilizer. There are no farm loans here like there are in the US and Europe. So that is the first reason. If you don't own livestock, you can't use organic manure, so you are obliged to get fertilizer on credit. And it is only with cotton that the CMDT [government marketing board that buys and exports cotton] gives you fertilizer. If you don't grow cotton, they won't give it to you. You can't have fertilizer on credit otherwise.
The second thing: The CMDT always buys the cotton. Whatever quantity you produce, they buy everything. So you don't have to do the extra work of going to the market yourself to sell the crop-you have it easy. If the price is not good there is a problem, but you are sure to sell all of it. So those are the two reasons people are being pushed to grow cotton.
There needs to be a system of credit adapted to the needs of family farmers. Because if there is no system of credit, people become slaves to society. You are forced to grow cotton-even if you don't like it, you are forced to do it. Otherwise you can't grow your corn because if you have no money you can't buy fertilizer...
Tell us about yourself.
My village is Langola, about 37 km from Fana. When I finished school I wanted to get into agriculture, and I set myself up on a farm—not to grow cotton, but other crops. My brothers grow cotton, but I don't, I can see it is not profitable, it is a useless waste of time.
This is why I started to work at AOPP. I said to myself, all our problems are political problems. If we don't change things, farmers will just remain a source of cheap votes for the politicians. And the country will never develop.
We need to fight for our rights. And farmers should have rights just like any other citizens. But farmers don't seem to have any rights in this country. The farmers have no drinkable water, no electricity, no telephone, they have nothing. They have no health care; they have nothing. It's not right.
Everything the state earns, it invests it in the cities. So we're not going to develop, poverty will get worse, and people in the cotton-producing zones are dying of hunger. I see it every day. It's not because they don't work, it's because we're killing them, the system we have in place is killing them.
When our government signs WTO accords and things like that, it's an abomination. They're opening our borders, and killing our farmers in the process and they don't care because it is not their problem.
The farmers have not realized their rights, and what they should aspire to in this country. This is the change I am fighting for. It's hard because you make a lot of enemies. The government officials fight against the AOPP, and against all the farmer associations. But this does not discourage us because we know it is a battle of interests, and everyone must fight for their interests.
