The inevitability of private property in Central Mali

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The inevitability of private property in Central
Mali

• Roy Cole
• Visiting faculty
• Department of Geography and Tourism
• University of Cape Coast, Ghana
• Associate Professor of Geography and Planning
• Grand Valley State University
• Allendale, Michigan, USA

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Ongoing research

• The original purpose of this research was to
  understand the impacts of drought on land use in
  rural Mali.
• The focus was on people-environment
  relations/drought-coping strategies literature.
• Ive used household surveys, informal
  interviewing.
• The air photo study Im reporting on today was
  completed in 2000 although I collected the data
  in 1986.
• The household surveys I collected in 1985-85
  formed the data for my doctoral dissertation.

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The study area
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Recently the area has been experiencing
increasing dryness and population growth
SOURCE IPCC 2001.
SOURCE FAO, 2003
SOURCE FAO, 2003
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Model of adaptation individual/group choices
mediated by society, constrained by technology
and environment
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Burton, Kates, and White choice tree behavioral
model (1993) of adaptation
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Watts (1983) model of marginalization caused by
the conjuncture of drought-related stress and
exogenous forces (rising capitalism)
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A neo-Marxist political ecology model
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The population and market models of adaptation
and change seem to talk past each other
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Of central importance to all these models is the
land tenure question

• The consensus of opinion on land tenure in
  Africa, particularly Mali (Simpson 2001), is that
  traditional land tenure arrangements will remain
  dominant and should be the focus of development
  efforts.
• Fundamental changes in tenure arrangements are
  unlikely to occur unless alternative forms of
  production occur or, as has happened in many
  parts of Asia and Latin America, the development
  of agrarian capitalism begins to marginalize the
  peasant producer (Okoth-Ogendo and Oucho 1993).
• On the other hand, the Peruvian economist
  Hernando de Soto believes that the lack of formal
  property rights is the source of poverty in poor
  countries and that the land tenure question must
  be addressed first of all to resolve population,
  land, and evironmental problems.

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The concept of property in Mali

• Three kinds of property customarily recognized.
• Foroba. (big field).
• Farmed by the extended family.
• Entire extended family derives basic subsistence
  from from its products.
• For as long as family has the means to cultivate
  this land, it will do so. Othewise the land is
  reallocated by the founding families of the
  village to others of the village even strangers
  (dunaw).
• Suféforo (jonforo). (night field).
• Fields cultivated by individual households of an
  extended family.
• Individual cultivator may keep the product for
  his or her household without sharing it with the
  extended family.
• Historically this type of property was rare
  except for slave labor (jonforoslave field).
• Kungo. (forest, wilderness).
• Uncultivated land between villages that may be of
  ambiguous status as to which village it belongs.

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The view of private property in the study area

• The word, foroba is synonymous with familial
  cooperation and sharing.
• If something is referred to as foroba, it is a
  shared resource for the extended family. Perhaps
  in-common would be a good definition.
• Foroba property is considered to be
  family-building.
• The words, suféforo (and jonforo), can refer to
  anything thats owned by an individual not just
  the product of fields farmed for the benefit of
  an individual.
• Private property is widely considered to be
  divisive in nature and anti-family (i.e. family
  destroying).
• In the study area land is owned communally,
  allocated by the founding lineages of the village
  to families, used only temporarily, and cannot be
  sold or permanently alienated in any way.

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Spatial organization of land use Pelissiers
model (1964) of rings of land use around a Serer
village

• Costs of transportation main influence on
  pattern.
• Annular pattern develops.
• Nucleated village and gardens (1).
• Rings of permanent, manured fields under Acacia
  albida.
• More distant rings of less intensely used land.
• Patchy edges.
• Forest

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Ring of Acacia albida around village several km
from study village
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Method

• Data.
• 1952, 1974 aerial photographs obtained from the
  Institut Geographique Nationale in Bamako.
• 1985 mission was flown by by ILCA in cooperation
  with NASA.
• In 1985 and 1986, village level household surveys
  were conducted in 48 villlages over a 500 km2
  area.
• Analysis.
• Air photos georeferenced and analyzed with GIS.
• Land use/cover classification was based on field
  work and inspection of the air photos.

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Results Major land use changes in hectares
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Results Major land use changes as percent of
total land use
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Land use land cover in hectares and
percent,village of Ngara, 1952, 1974, and 1985
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(No Transcript)
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New specialty crops and nuances of ownership
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Dramatic landscape transformation
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Greater control of nature
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New tools, crops, short-cycle varieties
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Conclusion

• The customary spatial organization of agriculture
  has been destroyed around the village of Ngara.
• Private property exists in all but name and has
  emerged from below.
• The evidence seems to suggests that the
  particular pattern that has emerged is a result
  of
• Environmental stress making drought-resistant
  fruit trees attractive.
• Availablity (mid 1960s) of highly-productive,
  grafted mango stock from the government
  agricultural experiment station at Sotuba.
• Government taxes (forced commercialization) on
  cereals but not mangoes.
• Concern about government taking of land (desire
  for permanence by fencing).
• High rate of return on sale of mangoes on the
  market.

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Some comments on the present

• Move from statist economy since 1980s.
• Private initiative growing.
• In mid-1980s privately-owned grain mills first
  appeared in the villages most owned by town
  dwellers (Bamako, Ségou).
• State dismantling parastatals (Opération Riz).
• I am preparing to do field work in area in
  December, 2005, to look at the extent of the
  fenced areas.
• Im expecting to find more land specialization,
  fenced orchards, and similar attitudes toward
  private property as I found in the mid-1980s.
• There is no physical reason why mangoes could not
  be grown in almost the entire area. Water table
  is almost the same everywhere.