Mali’s CMDT supports paraquat use
Cotton has played an important part in the economic development of a number of West African countries and has remained a key source of livelihood for many farmers. Cotton has been grown in West Africa for more than a hundred years and a significant traditional textiles industry has existed in the region for more than 50 years.
Cotton in Mali is grown on almost 160,000 farms, covering about one third of the cultivated land. About 40% of rural households, or 2.5 million people, rely on cotton production and related activities for their income. Most farmers use bullocks or other animals rather than tractor-power.
From the 1980s, there was a concerted effort in Mali between producers, cotton companies and rural credit funds to establish an effective cotton production support system. The BNDA (Banque Nationale de Développement Agricole) was the key source of credit for producers in rural areas, offering a package of services to individual producers. This was complemented by the activities of the Mali Textile Development Company - CMDT (Compagnie Malienne de Développement des Textiles). Since Mali’s independence, the CMDT undertook the coordination of the cotton crop from providing inputs to producers to collecting and trading cotton produced. It has also attempted to address constraints faced by producers and assist in training of village associations, some of which have become effective producer organisations. The CMDT thus claims to play a role both as an economic operator while also promoting social development in cotton production zones.
Mr I Dembele, regional manager at CMDT, is an active supporter of paraquat. He stresses that paraquat is a unique product because it can be used in difficult climatic conditions. “With the uncertainty of when rainfall will occur, growers use Gramoxone to save time for work on other crops.” And continues: “Gramoxone is such a good product that there’s never any stock left”.
So far as the poisoning cases people sometimes talk about, he hasn’t heard of any occurring during normal and proper agricultural use of Gramoxone. “It is even so popular that unfortunately counterfeiters collect waste containers of Gramoxone which are sold again on the parallel market containing all sorts of material. It’s with this type of counterfeit product that poisoning cases occur. It is therefore important to always buy the original product at the local store.”
Read full testimonial of Mr Dembele here (in French)
To understand why cotton growing is important in West Africa, please read the full OECD report written end 2005.
References
Mali Textile Development Company
– (CMDT - Compagnie Malienne de Développement des Textiles): http://www.maliagriculture.org/