Advancing Agroecological Transitions in Southern Mali

Lead Organization:

L'Institut d'Economie Rurale

Partner Organizations:

The Pathways to AEI project (2012–2023) established a strong partnership between IER, ONG AMEDD, Wageningen University (WUR), and ICRISAT. Under the FRN framework, these partners will collaborate on scaling agroecological technologies through co-learning. IER, ICRISAT, and WUR will lead research activities, while NGO AMEDD will implement and monitor showcase and trial fields.

— NGO AMEDD (Ousmane Dembélé, Josue DAO): Focus on entrepreneurial initiatives in crop production, capacity building, cooperative management (including market research and conflict resolution), and high-value crops (soybeans, sesame, groundnuts, cereals).

— IER (Ousmane SANOGO, Salif DOUMBIA, Arouna DISSA): Lead initiatives in livestock production, technical training, and support for producer groups (cowpea and small ruminants), with expertise in socio-economic analysis, agronomic research, and digital tool development (with the RMS-WA team).

— WUR (Katrien Descheemaeker): Provide expertise in production and food systems modeling and collaborate with IER on student supervision.

Community of Practice:

West Africa

Countries:

Mali

Duration:

8/2024—8/2027

Overview:

Production systems in Sahelian Africa, especially in southern Mali, are highly vulnerable to climatic shocks, market disruptions, and environmental degradation. cereals (maize, millet, and sorghum), cotton, and legumes (groundnuts, cowpeas, and soybeans) for food, income, and fodder and livestock (e.g., cattle, small ruminants, donkeys) to sustain their livelihoods. However, the agricultural system is under severe stress from climate change, poor productivity, and limited access to technologies. Despite this, agroecology has emerged as a promising solution, offering a holistic, context-specific approach to resilience and sustainability. However, the weak presence of extension and advisory services (Faure and Kleene, 2004) to support the scaling of agroecological technologies compromises their large-scale adoption by farmers with limited access to information (Sanogo et al., 2023).  The project builds on past research and aims to accelerate agroecological transitions through co-learning, digital tools, and multi-level scaling strategies.

Grant Aims:

  • Support agroecological transitions and climate resilience through multi-level scaling.
  • Strengthen the capacity of farmers and stakeholders to adopt and implement agroecological practices.
  • Leverage digital tools to optimize farm management and enhance decision-making.
  • Promote collaboration and knowledge-sharing among farmers, researchers, and decision-makers.
  • Improve livelihoods, food security, and environmental sustainability for farmers in southern Mali.

Outputs and Outcomes:

Outputs

  • SO1 (Advisory Services for Family Farms – ASFF):
    • Advisory Services for Family Farms (ASFF) is adapted for co-learning and the prevalent farming diversity. The ASFF includes technical-economic, managerial, and organizational advice, as well as animation-training and experimentation (showcase and try-out fields). Based on the exhibition and tailored advice, the ASFF facilitates the scaling of a range of agroecological technologies. Agroecological technologies are tested in the showcase fields and their effects evaluated. Also, technical support to farmers’ organizations for their entrepreneurial collective activities is provided. 
  • SO2 (Digital Tool Development):
    • The provision of a digitalized tool that meets the needs and management capabilities of family farms. The digital tool will facilitate data collection and appropriation by many producers. 
  • SO3 (Stakeholder Platforms):
    • Availability of platforms (digital and stakeholders’) to local actors (producers, decision-makers, local authorities, development agents and researchers) to share knowledge, and information on agroecological technologies. Availability of data supporting the decision-making on agroecological practices and their effects in multiple sustainability dimensions (e.g. yield, income, resource allocation) for producers, decision-makers and other collaborators.
  • SO4 (Capacity Building):
    • Stakeholders’ capacities will be strengthened through activities in the FRNs (showcase plots, inter-farmer visits, village assemblies), training workshops, joint discussion among stakeholders, local awareness-raising days, and communications via social media. Producers in the FRN will also benefit from capacity-building in the processing and marketing of their products (soybeans, sesame, cowpeas). In addition, the project will train 3 students, including 2 masters and 1 doctoral student.

Outcomes

  • SO1:
    • Outcomes: ASFF will promote the use of agroecological technologies by producers in FRNs. Institutional strengthening of groups and diversification of food systems.
    • Impacts: Through the improved adoption of agroecological technologies, agricultural productivity, income, livelihoods, agency of producers, and resilience to climatic and market shocks will increase.  
  • SO2:
    • Outcomes: Use of the digital tool will improve decision-making and overall farm management to cope with climate risks, through optimized timing of activities (e.g., sowing dates according to rainfall) and better resource allocation (e.g., area allocation to crops, use of agroecological technologies). The end-users (i.e., farmers) of the digital tool who collect and own their data will be able to do their own analysis and extract relevant information. 
    • Impacts: Use and adoption of digital tool will improve adoption of agroecological technologies, which will enable an agroecological transition that will lead to improved productivity, income, livelihoods, environmental health, agency of producers, and resilience to climatic and market shocks 
  • SO3:
    • Outcomes: Capacity building of stakeholders to perform basic analysis using the digital platform data and associated evidence on agroecological practices. Scaling of agroecological technologies through sharing of knowledge and evidence from field experimentation. Sharing evidence on promising technologies will result in improved collaboration between producers and other stakeholders. 
    • Impacts: Improved livelihoods including household food security and nutrition.
  • SO4:
    • Outcomes: Producer’s capacity will be improved to utilize agroecological technologies. The capacity of technical agents (research, NGOs, and government technical services) will be strengthened to provide better support for producers.
    • Impacts: Building the capacities of stakeholders will lead to improved production, agricultural productivity, and resilience of food systems.