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Over the past decade, Mali has succeeded in reducing the incidence of hunger and poverty, but it remains one of the world’s poorest countries. The national poverty rate was estimated to be over 43 per cent in 2010. Chronic food insecurity and malnutrition continue to be endemic throughout the country. This situation was aggravated by the global fuel and food crisis of 2008, which led to a sudden increase in food prices that has remained to this day.

In recent years, Mali has urbanized rapidly, but nearly 70 per cent of the population still lives in rural areas, where poverty is more prevalent and the vast majority of people rely on agriculture for food and income.

Rural poverty is characterized by isolation, lack of assets and income, and inadequate access to drinking water, schooling, health care, farming inputs, credit and employment.
Poverty is widespread throughout rural Mali, although the rural inhabitants of the central and northern Sahelian and Sahelo-Saharan areas are Mali’s poorest and most vulnerable populations. They are predominantly farmers and agropastoralists who practise dryland subsistence farming to feed their families, and contend with a poor and increasingly degraded resource base as well as limited access to basic services.

The depletion and degradation of soils, forests and water, as a result of overgrazing and the pressures of a growing population, continue to pose serious challenges to medium- and long-term food security in the country. Added to this, low rainfall has diminished production levels and rendered the rural population more vulnerable. Over the past 30, years rainfall has declined by about 30 per cent. The combination of climate change and degraded resources heightens the urgency of introducing new approaches and technologies to agricultural development strategies. Well-organized and sustainable management of land and water resources is of critical importance for the future.

Agriculture is potentially a key driver of the economy and the foundation for poverty reduction initiatives. Only 12 per cent of the country’s large irrigation capacity has been developed and crop yields remain far below potential. The production of cereals has increased over the last two decades, keeping pace with population growth. But this has been driven by an increase in the area under cultivation, and soils have progressively been degraded as a result.

Agriculture is extremely vulnerable to environmental risks and climatic shocks, such as drought, flooding, irregular rainfall patterns and locust invasions. Most of Mali’s agriculture is dominated by subsistence rainfed farming based around single households. The majority of rural inhabitants have limited access to land; about 68 per cent of farmers cultivate plots of less than 5 hectares. Most farms are ill-equipped to adopt modern practices, and farmers do not have access to credit to make the necessary investments.

The use of agricultural inputs and mechanization is very limited. Post-harvest handling of crops and livestock products is weak, and processing technologies are largely undeveloped.
 

Source: IFAD