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Seasonal Coping Strategies in Central Mali: Five Villages During the ‘Soudure’
Abstract
Rural Malians "cope' with low food and income levels during dry seasons by diversifying their income sources and trying to limit asset sales. "Soudure' refers to the hungry season between June, the start of the rains, and October, the start of the harvest, when there is little food left over from the harvest and energy is yet to be expended on work in the fields. However, this period begins earlier if stocks have been depleted in the dry season (February to June). This report tracks the use of "coping' strategies during the dry season in five Malian villages about 250km north of Bamako on the road to Nara, near the Mauritanian border. Dry season strategies need to be supported by development projects which use the surplus labour available during these months to improve, both financially and nutritionally, prospects for a successful year once the rains begin. Firstly, local labour could be employed to improve the infrastructure. Secondly, training programmes could be introduced, possibly at the district town, to teach basic adult literacy, the repair of well pumps and new cultivation and herding techniques. -from Author
... Our objective is to project millet price variations four months into the future. We focus here on the four month projection because 1) knowing that rising food prices will persist or worsen over a period of several months can significantly improve the likely response of humanitarian agencies (Smith and Davies, 1995), 2) vegetation information can be estimated with a high degree of accuracy estimated four months ahead using observed humidity and rainfall (Funk and Brown, 2006), and 3) being able to identify high prices can help aid organizations target areas where food availability might or to use fixed effects. 13 be low. ...
... As producers draw down their stocks, supply on the market decreases, whereas consumer demand remains unchanged, leading to a gradual increase of millet prices during spring. During the "hungry season" in summer, many farmers become net millet buyers because their own stocks are depleted, further boosting prices ( Cekan, 1992). Presumably, it is during this period that international cereal imports and aid shipments enter the region, provided that prices surpass import parity. ...
... Our objective is to project millet price variations four months into the future. We focus here on the four month projection because 1) knowing that rising food prices will persist or worsen over a period of several months can significantly improve the likely response of humanitarian agencies (Buchanan Smith and Davies, 1995), 2) vegetation information can be estimated with a high degree of accuracy estimated four months ahead using observed humidity and rainfall ( Funk and Brown, 2006), and 3) being able to identify high prices can help aid organizations target areas where food availability might or to use fixed effects. 13 be low. ...
In this article we specify a model of millet prices in the three West African countries of Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger. Using data obtained from USAID’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS NET) we present a unique regional cereal price forecasting model that takes advantage of the panel nature of our data, and accounts for the flow of millet across markets. Another novel aspect of our analysis is our use of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to detect and control for variation in conditions for productivity. The average absolute out-of-sample prediction error for 4-month-ahead millet prices is about 20 %.
... They return to the community with their food crops which they use to feed their families and also sell some to earn revenues that can be used to undertake a business venture. This confirms the findings of Cekan (1992) in Gallo a village in Mali. But unlike Gallo where the people reduce their calorie intake, migrate to cities and some undertaking cash crop production, the people of Bamahu move to other villages to undertake food crop production. ...
Due to formal education potentials for development, African governments usually site tertiary institutions in agrarian communities without taking recourse to their effects on the livelihood activities of people living in such communities. The study explored the relationship between the presence of University for Development Studies (UDS) and livelihood diversification of people in Bamahu in the Upper West Region of Ghana. A sample of 130 was drawn from a community of 2498 using purposive and snowball samplings techniques. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 was used to analyze quantitative data. Interviews, focus group discussions and observations were instruments used to collect qualitative data which was analyzed thematically whiles questionnaire design was used to collect quantitative data. It was found that the economy had been transformed to a more monetized economy. Livelihood activities patronized as a result of the establishment of UDS include small-scale business, porterage, security services and hostel management. Income earnings of respondents had also improved over the years. Many problems including loss of farmlands by the community have been encountered. Entrepreneurial training and interest free loans are recommended to help ease diversification.
... It can also be thought of as a risk-sharing strategy, as migrants and their relatives who remain in the village generally agree in advance to help each other in case of troubles, as in a mutual insurance contract (Stark and Bloom (1985)). In Sahelian countries, and in Mali in particular, local case studies suggest that both longterm rainfall conditions and short-term variations of rainfall inuence temporary and permanent migrations (Cekan (1992); Findley (1994); Manchuelle (1997); De Haan, Brock, and Coulibaly (2002)). Temporary moves usually involve only a few members of the household and represent a way to diversify incomes, both in non-drought years, during the dry season, and in periods of economic hardship (Gubert (2002)). ...
... Ex-post coping strategies include the liquidation of assets (e.g. sell and/or consume), reallocation of labor, temporary reduction of food consumption, temporary outmigration of household members, and reliance on loans or gifts from family members or social networks (Adams et al., 1998;Cekan, 1992). ...
In semi-arid areas, pastoralism is attributed to an insurance function for smallholder farmers relying otherwise on rain-fed agriculture. In southwestern Madagascar, zebu cattle are the most prominent herded animal, and the heads a household owns is a strong indicator of both prestige and social status. Given the extreme socio-cultural value of zebu cattle in Malagasy culture, however, many authors question the economic rationale of zebu accumulation. Consequently, improved zebu herding has been widely ignored as a suitable target for development interventions. Empirical micro-level data on the role of livestock herding in terms of household economics is missing, though. With this contribution, we close this knowledge gap by analyzing the economic importance of zebu herding against (i) the general role of livestock husbandry and (ii) non-cattle-related livelihood and coping strategies to safeguard smallholders against crop failures.
... Again, argues that diversification into local enterprises mainly enhances the ability to survive, and serves as a source of insurance against indebtedness and borrowing. In her study of seasonality and coping strategies as practised by five village councils in central Mali, Cekan (1992) suggested that rural households are able to derive mainly survival benefits from diversification. It could however be noted that rather than employing such survival strategies in times of crises, several small farm households employ such strategies for the greater part of the year. ...
This paper is set within a framework of re-conceptualising sustainable livelihoods and enterprises by identifying the multidimensionality of rural livelihood diversification within small farm households in Southern Ghana. Contributing to and providing links between the different rural livelihood strategies and household well-being, this paper investigates the nature and extent to which livelihood diversification impacts of households strategies towards wealth accumulation, survival and resilience to impoverishment. The study undertakes a critical evaluation of the impact and relationship between poverty reduction projects implemented through District Assemblies and those initiated by community organisations and households. Empirical research involving questionnaire surveys, interviews and focus group meetings was used in studying rural farm households in Akuapem North and Dangme West Districts in Southern Ghana. The paper points to the existence of significant divergence in outcomes of livelihood diversification. Also, the overall impact of diversification and formal intervention strategies towards alleviating poverty within small farm household's economy is limited and not sustainable with survival being the more probable outcome of diversification.
... This statement should not come as a surprise. After all, the literature on coping strategies is full of examples where households tend to 'absorb' the impact of a shock by engaging in detrimental behaviour such as reducing the number of meals per days or withdrawing their children from school (Corbett, 1988;Cekan, 1992;Roncoli et al., 2001). Undoubtedly, these resilience strategies are affecting the wellbeing of these households, even if they allow them to survive the impact of the shock they were facing. ...
Resilience has become prominent in academia where it is used as a central framework in disciplines such as ecology, climate change adaptation or urban planning. Policy makers and international development agencies also increasingly refer to it. The objective of this paper is to assess the advantages and limits of resilience in the context of development. Although the review highlights some positive elements—for example, the ability to foster an integrated approach—it also shows that resilience has important limitations. In particular, it is not a pro-poor concept, in the sense that it does not exclusively apply to, or benefit, the poor. As such, resilience building cannot replace poverty reduction. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
... Through such analyses, the objective is for development organizations, such as Oxfam, to develop ways of partnering with local social institutions more effectively in climate adaptation efforts. This project has intentionally avoided focusing on short-term coping mechanisms that have been amply covered elsewhere (Cekan 1992; Thornton et al. 2007; Webb 1993). We have also intentionally avoided focusing exclusively on technical practices, for two reasons. ...
The research presented in this report was conducted with the goal of describing and analyzing the diverse roles of local social institutions in adaptation processes over the course of recent decades. Field sites were chosen in the agro-pastoral zone of Borana in southern Ethiopia and in the cotton-growing regions of Mali because of these areas’ significant vulnerability and sensitivity to climate variability, particularly drought.
The following key questions guided the fieldwork:
1. What role do local social institutions have in long-term adaptation to environmental change?
2. How have extra-local actors interacted with local social institutions in development and adaptation efforts?
3. How is the production and use of weather and climate information organized?
Drawing inspiration from Agrawal (2008, 2), local social institutional dynamics were analyzed in terms of how
a) they structure impacts and vulnerability,
b) they mediate between individual and collective responses to climate impacts and thereby shape outcomes of adaptation, and
c) they act as the means of delivery of external resources to facilitate adaptation, and thus govern access to such resources (2008, 2 formatting is author’s).
The research found that local social institutions mediate people’s adaptive processes, production practices, land and water governance, social support systems, gendered household dynamics, use of weather and climate information, and interactions with external actors and interventions. Adaptation is a long-term transformation of social and technical practices and networks. Efforts that build on or complement existing adaptive processes and institutions stand a better chance of being both materially and socially effective. Furthermore, the research showed that local social institutions are rarely fully transparent, democratic, or inclusive. However, this does not necessarily mean that local social institutions lack social legitimacy or accountability. Because of their legitimacy and accountability, it is generally preferable to work with existing institutions instead of attempting to establish new ones.
The report concludes with seven recommendations:
1. Development efforts should enhance people’s adaptive capacities so that they are then better able to engage in and lead adaptation processes.
2. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) should look for opportunities to support endogenously led adaptation rather than presuming to initiate adaptation processes.
3. Land and water management issues should simultaneously engage both customary and state institutions, building cooperation and collaboration.
4. Opportunities for market integration should be weighed against the costs that often come in relation to erosion of customary social support mechanisms.
5. Increasing women’s access to educational, political, and financial opportunities will help reduce their vulnerability to the adverse effects of climate change. However, such increases can only be meaningfully achieved through long-term sustained engagement, not short project cycles.
6. Livelihood diversification into economic activities that are not directly climate-dependent should be promoted to reduce vulnerability to climate shocks. This diversification can include cyclical or long-term labor migration.
7. Synergy in weather and climate information production practices should be facilitated through collaborative efforts between customary producers and scientific forecasting.
... The analysis also showed that prices increased from January, when the price is in the range of P 2, to June when the price has reached P 4. The higher prices (P 4 and P 5 ) were associated with the months just prior to the harvest, July and August. The highest prices (P 6 –P 10 ) are not associated with any particular month, indicating that they occurred at all times during the year, but were most closely associated with the pre-harvest summer months, known locally as the 'hungry season' or 'Soudure' (Toulmin, 1986; Glantz, 1990; Cekan, 1992)). The sharp increase in prices around August was associated with declines in available supply, along with many other factors that influence prices, such as increased demands on time and money, influence of food aid, and the livestock market. ...
Systematic evaluation of food security throughout the Sahel has been attempted for nearly two decades. Food security analyses have used both food prices to determine the ability of the population to access food, and satellite-derived vegetation indices that measure vegetation production to establish how much food is available each year. The relationship between these two food security indicators is explored here using correspondence analysis and through the use of Markov chain models. Two sources of quantitative data were used: 8 km normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometers (AVHRR) carried on the NOAA series of satellites, and monthly millet prices from 445 markets in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. The results show that the growing season vegetation production is related to the price of millet at the annual and the seasonal time scales. If the growing season was characterized by erratic, sparse rainfall, it resulted in higher prices, and well-distributed, abundant rainfall resulted in lower prices. The correspondence between vegetation production and millet prices is used to produce maps of millet prices for West Africa.
... The analysis also showed that prices increased from January, when the price is in the range of P 2, to June when the price has reached P 4. The higher prices (P 4 and P 5 ) were associated with the months just prior to the harvest, July and August. The highest prices (P 6 –P 10 ) are not associated with any particular month, indicating that they occurred at all times during the year, but were most closely associated with the pre-harvest summer months, known locally as the 'hungry season' or 'Soudure' (Toulmin, 1986; Glantz, 1990; Cekan, 1992)). The sharp increase in prices around August was associated with declines in available supply, along with many other factors that influence prices, such as increased demands on time and money, influence of food aid, and the livestock market. ...
... Moreover, earlier studies by Davies (1996) concluded that non-farm diversification by very deprived communities largely enhances the ability to survive and serves as a source of insurance against indebtedness and borrowing. In her study of seasonality and coping strategies as practised by five village councils in central Mali, Cekan (1992) suggested that rural households are able to derive mainly survival benefits from diversification. However, rather than employing such survival strategies in times of crises, several small-farm households consistently (or regularly?) ...
Environmental variability and climate change has become an enormous challenge of our time. Policy approaches to find sustainable strategies and interventions have become more and more important by the day. Whilst it is difficult to predict the current and future impacts of a phenomenon with such diverse impact streams, it is evident that the livelihood options of the poor and marginal societies in the global south are more likely to experience a significant shift. Again, their environment and the availability of the resources they depend on for their sustenance are predicted to be dwindling. This editorial seeks to bring together diverse approaches and experience from some of the different geographical regions in the global south identified to be most likely to be affected by environmental variability and to examine the various policy options that could facilitate the livelihood options of the poor, enhance their adaptation and reduce poverty. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
L'etude et l'application des comportements des ménages face aux difficultés ont été largement confinées aux problemes de famine et de précarité alimentaire. S'appuyant sur l'observation de situations en Afrique occidentale, cet article suggère qu'une meilleure connaissance de la manière dont les ménages font face aux difficultés et affectent leurs ressources en temps de crise est extrêmement utile pour un large éventail d'interventions en faveur du développement. II présente aussi un cadre conceptuel d'évaluation des comportements des ménages face aux difficultés dans des contextes exogènes et endogènes. L'application de ce cadre peut fournir une approche mieux informée en matière de conception, de mise en oeuvre et de ciblage des interventions en faveur du développement, et plus sensible aux différents besoins et expériences des communautés et des ménages ruraux.
One of the key conclusions that emerges from recent socio-economic research in rural development is the need to recognise the heterogeneity of rural societies and the diversity of their livelihood strategies. Even small communities are made up of diverse assemblages of different socio-economic strata characterised by different livelihood strategies and economic portfolios (Ashley and Carney 1999; Ellis 1999; Toulmin et al. 2000; Vosti and Reardon 1997). Depending on where they stand within these socio-economic strata, households and individuals have highly differentiated access to resources and opportunities, much of which is systematically linked to ethnicity, gender and ownership of assets, as well as knowledge, network and experience acquired over time. While the poorest households in the community will depend heavily upon a given combination of crops and/or natural resources (usually common pool resources) for their food security and income generation, the better-off, because they face different socio-economic and institutional constraints and opportunities, will develop sometimes radically) different activity portfolios. In this context, understanding the exact contribution of each rural activity to the local and households' economy and identifying their respective potential (positive or negative) effects on poverty reduction and wealth differentiation for the local population appear as a key-element for the design of appropriate rural development policies.
This book embodies the results of thirteen years of research in drought-prone rural areas in the semi-arid zone of northern Nigeria. It describes the patterns of adaptive behaviour observed among Hausa, Ful'be and Manga communities in response to recurrent drought in the 1970s and 1980s. The question of desertification is explored in an area where the visible evidence of moving sand dunes is dramatic blame are examined in relation to the field evidence. A critique is offered of deterministic theories and authoritarian solutions. Professor Mortimore demonstrates a parallel between the observable resilience of semi-arid ecosystems and the adaptive strategies of the human communities that inhabit them and suggests policy directions for strengthening that resilience.
Draws on case studies from Nigeria to comment on the danger of generalizing about agrarian collapse on the basis of quite problematic statistics. Emphasizes the dynamic changing character of pastoral and peasant production systems in semiarid West Africa. Considers land use management and responses to environmental changes. -C.Barrow (CDS)
The “Systèmes d'Alerte Précoce” - the SAPs - of Chad and Mali have been in operation since April 1986. Their purpose is to forecast (or more realistically, detect as early as possible) food shortages in the drought-prone areas of each country. They are based on a multidisciplinary strategy, taking into account all relevant phenomena, from meteorology to nutritional status, and are implemented through the governmental networks. The present experience shows that, compared with the devastations due to famine and the cost of emergency food aid, they are not that expensive and they seem sustainable over the long term.
“Faultless” prediction is not yet the rule, but several procedures permit progressive improvement in the ability of the systems to analyse and interpret.
This paper explains the functioning process of the SAPs and presents several operational results. Additionally, it covers innovative concepts that have proved to be successful, such as the “participative information network”.
Famine early warning systems using socio-economic data suffer from several problems. One is that they cannot, and do not attempt to, distinguish between qualitatively different kinds of famine. The second is that they cannot predict these either accurately or early enough. This is because all the socio-economic indicators produce both false positives and false negatives, the indicators themselves are "late" and because interpretation of the data is complex and time-consuming. The third problem is that within the context of a famine that is occurring, these indicators cannot predict excess mortality. The argument is illustrated with examples from the 1984-5 famine in Darfur, Sudan.
Indigenous versus introduced solutions to food stress in Africa
- J Moris
Vulnerability: How the poor cope.
- Chambers R.