Africa, Development & Aid, Food and Agriculture, Headlines, Poverty & SDGs

MALI: Early Anxiety Over Price of Grain

Soumaïla T. Diarra

BAMAKO, Mar 21 2011 (IPS) - In the small village of Gwélékoro, 60 kilometres south of the capital, Bamako, the fields are empty now, during the dry season. After a poor harvest, farmers are worried by swiftly rising prices for staple foods like sorghum and millet.

“The cost of grain is particularly high this year,” Karim Diarra, a 43-year-old smallholder told IPS. ” A kilo of millet, for example, has not been sold for less than 100 CFA francs (around 20 U.S. cents). It’s been a long time since I’ve seen this. In previous years, a kilo could be sold at 50 CFA.”

While waiting for the start of the next rains (round about July) so that work in the fields can resume, the farmers are closely monitoring the prices of staple foods. They are apprehensive about the difficult period when they resume farming for a new season, but will have to buy grain to feed themselves, having run out of food from the previous year.

Sitting at a look-out point and gazing at the horizon, 65-year-old Niènè Traoré, said: “We have been anticipating these difficult times because of the sudden rise in prices. We don’t have many reserves for the rainy season (July to October), a period marked by the rocketing prices of basic foodstuffs.”

In the village of Hérémakono, seven kilometres from Gwélékoro, farmers claim the high cost of grain is partly due to the heavy rainfall in the area the previous season, which damaged their crops.

Talking to IPS, Madou Koné, a farmer who has 30 people to support, says that he is expecting difficulties. “Every year, I harvest enough to feed my whole family, but for the first time I might be buying cereals from the market. This really worries me because the prices are going to continue to rise.”

Currently, the price of millet is around 150 CFA francs (about 30 U.S. cents) per kilo in the markets of Hérémakono. This high price recalls a report released by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) last January, which sounded alarm bells about the rising prices of staple foods globally. But the local farmers say their predicament has little to do with the prevailing international situation or a local shortage.

They claim that the high price has nothing to do with the level of local production. “In Mali, the problem of high grain prices is not because of a shortage, but is a result of speculation. The authorities must control the market where subsidised grain is sold, to break the prices during the winter months,” said the chief of Hérémakono, Baba Dramé.

With an output of close to seven million tonnes of cereals, the 2010-2011 agricultural period, which has just been concluded in Mali, has been a very good one, says Moussa Léo Sidibé, secretary-general of the agricultural ministry.

According to Sidibé, many orders for export have been placed by big buyers, like the World Food Programme (WFP).

In February, it was reported on national television that WFP has ordered 15,000 tonnes of grain for Bénin and Sénégal. According to the same source, these exports and other reported orders will contribute to Mali’s economic growth in 2011.

To date, the government has not taken any measures against the rise in grain prices in 2011. While waiting to resume farming for the new season, the rural population is still managing to make ends meet. But for how long?

From their side, the grain banks will only open in the period between harvests when high prices are generalised and affect the whole country. Malian villages, organised into associations, re-establish their grain stores after the harvest each year; these are reserves that allow them to regulate the market price of the commodities.

The grain banks’ managers are autonomous in their decision over when to make their stocks available for sale, but they have never done it before the winter season begins. This stock is usually sold to the local population between June and September, to counter speculation.