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Where food is capital: Labour allocation in cereals production, N.W. Mali
Agricultural Systems 41 (1993) 197-213
Where Food is Capital: Labour Allocation in Cereals Production, N.W. Mali* A. R. Kremer 4, Dorset Place, Faversham, Kent, UK, ME13 8PP
& C. Lock University of Tasmania, Hobart 7001, Australia (Received 24 December 1991; accepted 12 April 1992)
A BS TRA C T Cereals farming in the cercle of Nara, N. IV. Mali, is described. Production is constrained by the availability of labour for weeding, which is in turn constrained by the supply of the wage good--food. Casual labour sales, migration and changes to family structure adjust labour use to the supply of food. This hypothesis is supported by cross-sectional statistical analysis. The process's regressive distributive tendencies are mitigated by social reallocation mechanisms. It is concluded that so-called subsistence production systems can appear markedly capitalist when food is considered as a means of production.
1 INTRODUCTION S t a n d a r d m o d e l s o f p e a s a n t f a r m e r decision m a k i n g are based u p o n the M a r s h a l l i a n t h e o r y o f the p r o f i t - m a x i m i s i n g firm. F a r m e r s a p p l y their * The data reported in this paper were obtained between 1986 and 1990 by the Mali Millet Pest Project, funded by the British Government's Overseas Development Administration (ODA) and managed by its Natural Resources Institute (NRI). The project used on-farm trials to assess the suitability of chemical pesticides for Sahelian millet. :~Present address: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY 197 Agricultural Systems 0308-521X/92/$05.00 © 1992 Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd, England. Printed in Great Britain
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endowments of labour and capital to land in such a way as to maximise profits and, in more sophisticated models, to avoid risk. An important element of these models is the treatment of labour and capital as distinct quantities. This has led to the description of peasant farming as noncapitalist unless, as in cash-cropping, capital items are visible. This paper, however, describes a situation in which it is difficult to distinguish between labour and capital: the farming economy of the Nara cercle in N.W. Mali. The supply of labour is determined by the supply of capital and the supply of capital is determined by the supply of labour in the previous year. This situation is brought about by the very nature of food. Food feeds labour, and labour produces food. This process, the production of commodities by means of commodities, has more in common with the dynamic classical or 'neooRicardian' models of Ricardo, Marx and Sraffa than with the static neoclassical model of peasant farming. It returns to 'the original picture of the system of production and consumption as a circular process', which 'stands in striking contrast to the view presented by modern theory, of a one-way avenue that leads from "Factors of Production" to "Consumption Goods"' (Sraffa, 1972).
2 BACKGROUND Before describing the two-way interactions between food and labour in N.W. Mali it is necessary to explain the technological and social background to farmers' decision making in that zone. Of particular importance are the organisation of cereals production and the variability of food availability.
2.1 The organisation of cereal production: the village, family and household The cercle of Nara contains several ethnic groups; the Bambara, Soninke (Sarakolle) and Gurrrga are sedentary cultivators, but the Soninke have traditionally been involved in commerce and the Gurrrga in Moslem priesthood. All own livestock. The Peul and Maure were originally nomadic pastoralists, but poorer grazing conditions since the 1960s have driven some to become sedentary cultivators (Toulmin, 1983). Maure pastoralists' livestock usually graze seasonal pastures in Mauritania between June and November. Sedentary cultivators of all ethnic groups live in nucleated villages, although some families set up a farming homestead for the growing
Where food is capital: N. IV. Mali
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season. A village contains the descendants of its farmers, who are usually its leading citizens, families that have subsequently joined the village and the descendants of the slaves of these two groups, the latter are usually counted among the poorest. The village is composed of families (dou), groups of 5 to 50 people descended from a common male ancestor. Each family is led by a family head (doutigi), typically the oldest brother of the oldest generation. Other married men within the family, such as the doutigi's brothers and sons, head their own households (so) as sotigi. This structure is common to many religions of the Sahel (Norman et al., 1981; Benoit-Cattin & Faye, 1982). A household may break away from the family to become a family in its own right. This often occurs when the household head has the same father, but a different mother from the family head. Pollet & Winter (1968) found that a Soninke family head would pressure a household to leave the family if it was consuming more food than it produced. Creevey (1986) found 14% of families to be headed by women near Srgou. In the cercle of Nara, however, this appears to be a seasonal phenomenon. Only one female family head was found in 80 families sampled in the rainy season of 1990, but male migration during the dry season may leave the wife of the absent family head in charge of the compound. The village is headed by a chief (dougoutigi), but only the most authoritarian will offer a unilateral decision on a controversial problem. Most decisions are taken by a meeting of heads of nobler families, wherein the chief wields the strongest influence. Other men and boys may listen, but they do not speak; women are excluded. Villagers are conscious of a gradual tendency towards individualism. Colonial government eliminated the traditional collective food security strategy--warfare (Jones, 1970; Toulmin, 1986), reduced the family head's predominance by abolishing his right to own slaves (Pollet & Winter, 1968) and reduced the power of village councils by treating the chief as a village's sole representative. Norman et al. (1981) attribute the subsequent breakdown of village-level activities to capitalist penetration and the emergence of school learning as a source of authority alongside the traditional authority of age. Jones (1970) hypothesised that the arrival of new crops, such as groundnuts, reduced the value of the elder's experience. The management of food and labour is determined within the social structures described above. Fields can be managed by the village as a whole, by a family or by a household. Only very small areas are cultivated by a village work-team (ton). A ton is a group of individuals of the same age from different families that t Not blacksmiths, minstrels or the descendants of slaves.
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undertakes a particular task. Lachenmann (1986) characterised it as qnformal, spontaneous, non-conformist and non-homogeneous'. Traditionally, according to villagers, a ton of young men would cultivate the fields of family heads incapacitated by sickness. It would also manage a ton field whose output would finance village expenditures, such as well-digging. They were vaunted as a motor of rural development by the socialist government of Modibo Keita (1960-68), and were readopted in 1979 by the military government of Moussa Traore. Jones (1970) found that villages created ton fields or Mali/bro simply in the hope of receiving government aid, but this did not 'break the backbone' of the family (Becker, 1990). There was never a strong collectivist tradition in Bambara society (Franke, 1984). Family fields (foroba), allocated initially to a family head by the chief and retained by his family from generation to generation, account for over 85% of cultivated land, but the proportion varies from village to village. The foroba workteam consists of able adults and adolescents, although senior members of richer families may abstain. Accounts of married women's participation in the foroba team vary. Pollet & Winter (1968) found that Soninke women only helped plant and harvest the family field. Creevey (1986) reported that male members of a family pay for their wives' labour near S6gou. Koenig (1986) and Turritin (1988) found that women's labour made an important contribution to the cultivation of family fields, and Becker (1990) that married women worked in the foroba and household fields for 'as long a their labour is needed'. Muslim spiritual leaders advise against women working alongside men, and all the above note that a woman's participation is determined by the community's attitude to Islam. This study observed that women do not always contribute their labour to their husband's foroba free of charge, but they are an important source offoroba labour in the poorest families and in animist communities. Household heads in some families are permitted to work private fields (jonforo) in the evenings or for one day a week. In some villages, for reasons not yet understood, families are distinctly larger, averaging 50 to 100 members. In this case, the household and its private field are comparatively important. In some families, older married women, who have delegated domestic work to younger women, cultivate their own private fields (musoforo). For those women that did in 1987, the average cultivated area per woman in three villages was 0.4 ha, which amounted to 6% of the total area cultivated. The yield of the family field is kept in a granary inside the family enclosure. The family head usually measures out the grain for the day's meals and will try to keep the granary's contents a secret from outsiders.
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TABLE 1 Days' Self-sufficiencyin Cereals in Three Villages near Mourdiah, 1987 Days' consumption
Families
Percentage of families
0-30 31-60 61-100 101-150 151-200 201-300 301 +
10 10 11 10 3 0 3
21 21 23 22 6 0 6
Total
47
100
Those who cultivated the family field have first call on meals from this granary. The yield of a private field is managed, often in great secrecy, by the individual who cultivated it. It may contribute to family meals, household meals, or cash earnings. Musoforo crops provide condiments, cash for women's expenditures and, only as a last resort grain for home consumption. 2.2 Variation in food availability
Cereal yields vary enormously in the cercle of Nara, because of variations in rainfall, pest attack and soil quality. In three villages near Mourdiah in 1987, the top 25% of families made 348 kg/ha on average, whereas the bottom 25% made 45 kg/ha. In 1988, average millet yields in Mourdiah were around 900 kg/ha. In Dilly, less than 100 km to the northwest, they were around 300 kg/ha. This inevitability leads to variation in food availability between years, villages and families, measured as the number of days during which a family can live off its own cereals production. In villages around Mourdiah in the cercle of Nara, the 1987, 1988 and 1989 harvests provided at least one year's cereal consumption for 6, 77 and under 5% of families, respectively. Table 1 illustrates the variation in self-sufficiency in three villages near Mourdiah in 1987.
3 THE LABOUR CONSTRAINT The Sahel's short growing season has driven farmers to adopt an extensive cultivation strategy to reduce risk (Toulmin, 1986; Milleville, 1989)
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TABLE 2 Labour Use Budgets for Millet in the Sahel: Various Studies (workdays/ha)
M o u r d i a h , Mali D a l o n g a b o u g o u , Mali b Dofin6na, Mali h 5th Region, Mali" Op6ration H a u t e Vall6e, Mali Dokola, Burkina J
Preparation and sowing
First weeding
Second weeding
10 6 8 13 29 15
21 9 20 12
14 a n/a n/a 12
Harvest
4 6 19 28 n/a n/a ... 19.5 ... n/a n/a 20 n/a
... 63 ... 30
Postharvest
20
u N o t always performed. b F u l t o n & T o u l m i n (1982). c Veeneklass et al. (1991). M a n u r e d fields with o x - d r a w n plough. d M a r c h a l (1989).
Marchal (1989) writing about northern Burkina Faso, describes labour use in agriculture as a 'race against time'. This phrase applies perfectly to the cercle of Nara. Here, cereals production is constrained not by the quantity of land (only 5% of arable land is cultivated), but by availability of labour for the first weeding. As Table 2 indicates, the first weeding takes up an important portion of total labour use. For agronomic reasons, moreover, the first weeding must be performed within a short time window. Short rainy seasons have
Jun
Uul ]AM(] SeD IOct
Nov IDec
Souna sowing
v~edlno harvest threshing winnowing
m
m
p,,-,-
Sanyo
sowing weeding harvest
n
threshing
m
winnowing
Sorghum
sowing
weeding harvest threshing winnowing
iiiim
Fig. 1.
Agricultural calendar--cercle of N a r a .
203
Where food is capital: N. IV. Mali AcUvlty Preparation
1
Weeding
Harvest
• of leak lebow use
July
Period Fig. 2.
Labour use, 1990--six villagesnear Mourdiah.
led to the widespread adoption of short-cycle millet, which accounted for 67% of land use in three villages near Mourdiah in 1987. They have also led to the practice of dry-sowing, whereby millet is made to germinate by the first heavy rain. These two factors ensure that much millet requires weeding between mid-July and mid-August (Fig. 1), producing a marked peak in labour demand (Fig. 2). It is common for fields to be abandoned for lack of weeding and it is significant that adulthood is defined as the ability to weed. Weeding by hoe consumes over three times as many calories per hour as standing at rest (Phillips, 1954), leading to an increased food requirement at a season when food stocks are low. These two factors interact to produce seasonal calorie shortages and restricted weight gain in children (Annegers, 1973). Grain production is therefore constrained by a family's ability to apply weeding labour to its fields, which is in turn determined by its capital--its stock of grain.
4 A D J U S T I N G THE FOOD/LABOUR RATIO The ratio of food stocks to labour use is, therefore, a key issue in farmers' decision making. Residual grain stocks at the end of the growing season would indicate that the family has missed an opportunity to produce more grain by taking on labour and extending its cultivated area. Excessive labour would lead to a food shortage. Villagers' strategies for adjusting the food/labour ratio are described below.
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4.1 Casual labour hire
Each village has a fixed daily wage rate, typically FCFA 750 (US $2.60) for weeding and FCFA 500 (US $1.75) for other activities. Wages are commonly paid in grain. The hirer provides his employee with meals. Wealthier families may hire labour by the month at a cheaper rate FCFA 5000-10000 per calendar month, plus meals). The financial returns to labour hire can be high. For a family with planted land that would otherwise be abandoned for lack of weeding, with a wage of FCFA 750/day, a weeding rate of 21 days/ha, expected yields of 500 kg/ha and 0 kg/ha for once-weeded and unweeded fields, respectively, and a millet price of FCFA 75/kg, the hire of weeding labour offers a 140% financial return over 6 months. One cannot say, however, whether labour hire increases or decreases a family's exposure to risk; when a grain deficit family hires labour it increases its exposure to yield variation, but reduces its exposure to price variation. Investment in agriculture was studied in 1987, 1988 and 1989 in three villages near Mourdiah; six villages, including the original three, were covered in 1990. Data were collected from each family head, on average every 10 days between planting and harvest and farmers showed themselves willing to provide information. Seasonal cash expenditure on agriculture between 1987 and 1990 is displayed in Table 3. Table 3 shows gross cash payments, but many families are forced by lack of food to dis-invest; they reduce the value of resources applied to their own fields by selling their labour out. Deducting the value of labour sales (disinvestment) reduces mean investment in 1990 from FCFA 10 300 to FCFA 3700 and median investment from FCFA 3000 to FCFA 1500.
TABLE 3 Seasonal Investmenta in Cereal Production, Near Mourdiah, 1987-90.
Investment~family Year 1987 1988 1989 1990
3 3 3 6
Mean investment~family
Coverage
( FCFA )
(US$)
villages ($0) villages (__)b villages ($22) villages ($11)
14400 15300 29 900 10300
51 53 104 36
Seed purchases are not included. bData not available.
Median (FCFA)
0 -6 335 3000
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TABLE 4
Seasonal Expenditure on Cereal Cultivation in Six Villages Near Mourdiah by Type, 1990
Families in sample US S/family Labour hire (%) Plough hire (%) Chemical inputs (%) Hoe purchase (%) Plough repair (%) Total
Families selling labour
Other families
All
38 15 0 26 0 29 45
67 48 62 2 <1 11 24
105 36 53 6 <1 14 27
100
100
100
Table 4 breaks down cash expenditure by type, showing the importance of labour hire in farm budgets. Indeed, after farmers have acquired their means to cultivate their land, labour hire accounts for 100% of seasonal expenditure. Table 4 also makes the distinction between families selling and not selling labour. The latter invested more than three times as much per family as the former. Labour sellers did not invest in labour hire. Only families with surplus food can hire labour in. Families with a food deficit have to sell labour. An anecdote from 1990 illustrates how food stocks affect the labour market. An old blind man without any children used to use profits from trading to hire other villagers to work his fields. When a consignment of food aid arrived in his village, he suddenly found that nobody wished to work for him. Although the hire of casual labour can 'fine-tune' a family's food/labour ratio, it is not of great absolute importance. Even in a year of low food stocks, casual labour only accounted for 14% of workdays (the village of Sekelo, 1990). To effect larger adjustments in their food/labour ratio families engage in seasonal or long-term migration.
4.2 Migration The allocation of workers between the family's village, seasonal migration and long-term migration is a key decision for the family, and takes the following considerations into account: (a) In the short term, migrants only earn enough to ensure their own survival. New arrivals in Bamako may earn as little as FCFA 3000 (US $10.50) per month as street vendors. Van Westen & Klute (1986) found that only 34% of migrants in their first year in Bamako sent
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remittances, as opposed to 80% of those who had been in Bamako for 8 to 10 years. The returns to migration to other destinations are presumably equally long term. (b) Long term migrants can make a substantial contribution to the family budget. Van Westen & Klute (1986) estimated that the average remittance from Bamako was FCFA 30 000 (US $105) per migrant family per year, enough to provide grain for three adults for a year. These considerations have brought about three distinct types of migration in the cercle of Nara: (a) Seasonal migration. A migration southwards follows the harvest, since the demand for labour is reduced during the dry season, No, some or all members of a family may leave, depending on the level of food stocks. Young adult males are the most likely to leave, family heads and mothers with children the least. After the 1990 harvest, 27% of families left their villages, along with 20% of the adults of other families (survey of 18 villages near Mourdiah). The arrondissement was subsequently described as being a high-risk zone by the famine early warning systems of the US and Malian governments. (b) Planned relocation. Because migration implies costs (loss of agricultural labour and relocation costs) in the short run and a possible benefit (improved earnings) in the long run, it can be viewed as an investment. Cohort studies in several zones of Mall have confirmed that the propensity to invest in long-term migration is positively related to a family's wealth (Mazur, 1984). In the cercle of Naras the Soninke display a marked tendency to invest in migration. (c) Forced migration. Food shortages drive poorer families southwards and prevent individual seasonal migrants from returning to their village. Thus, migration appears to 'evacuate' malnutrition from the food deficit zone (Autier et al., 1989). A survey of two sedentary agricultural villages near Mourdiah in 1987 produced the information upon families' cash incomes shown in Table 5. It is probable that family heads understated their incomes in the hope of reducing tax payments or increasing aid receipts, but there is no reason to believe that the breakdown by source is inaccurate. Some 38% of the cash incomes of these sedentary agricultural villages was found to come from migrants, and a further 14% from labour sales. 4.3 Adjustments to family structure Family structures are not fixed; they adjust to circumstances in such a way as to modify the food/labour ratio:
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TABLE 5
Family Cash Incomes a in Two Villages Near Mourdiah, 1987
Source of income
Income/family (FCFA)
(US $)
78 800 6 900 24 400 82 200 1 000 9 500 5 900
276 24 79 289 3 33 20
38 3 11 40 0 5 3
206 700
725
100
Receipts from migrants Casual agricultural labour Other labour Livestock sales Crop sales Carting Weaving Total
Percentage oftotal
a Women's cash incomes are managed separately from family cash incomes.
(a) Family size. A household has a greater incentive to remain within a richer family than a poorer one. Richer men are also able to pay higher bride prices than poorer men. There is, therefore, a tendency for families with capital to attract labour, as illustrated by Table 6. (b) The role of the household. Household production acts as a 'buffer' against hard times. In times of food shortage the family head can redirect labour from private fields to the family field and request grain from private fields for family meals. Billings (1975) noted a similar tendency in southern Mali for labour to be redirected from cotton to subsistence fields in years of poor rainfall, and in the more fertile arrondissement of Baginda, 50 km southeast of Bamako, private fields account for as much as 33% of farmed land (Becker, 1990). (At the same time, however, re-
TABLE 6
Family Size and per capita Wealth Holdings in Three Villages Near Mourdiah, 198(~87
Family size
1-9 10-14 15-30 30 +
Percentage of all families
30 30 26 15
Wealth per capita (FCFA)
(US $)
25700 28600 44500 61 000
90 100 160 210
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A. R. Kremer, C. Lock
duced agricultural productivity increases the importance of households relative to families as household heads' off-farm earnings replace family farming as a source of food.)
5 STATISTICAL EVIDENCE The hypothesis that a family's food stocks affect its capacity to extend its cultivated area can be tested by reference to empirical evidence from the cercle of Nara. It is not surprising that a family's investment is related to its investment in the previous year (regression 1), since both depend upon its liquidity position. (Investment in all the following equations is expressed in FCFA. Only gross investment was recorded for 1987; net investment, gross investment less a family's sales of labour, is a better indicator of its liquidity position.) Regression 1:
Net investment (88) = - 1 0 381 + 0-61 × Gross investment (87) t = 5-9, n -- 26, r 2 = 0.49, p < 0-01 Yields per hectare in 1988, however, were not correlated with yields per hectare in 1987 @2 = 0.04). Yields per hectare in 1987 and 1988 were not correlated with investment @2 = 0.01 in both years). This suggests that the main influence of investment is on cultivated area rather than on yield per hectare. Both 1987 and 1988 data show, moreover, that investments are positively related to hectares cultivated per family worker. By bringing in labour and maintaining ploughs, wealthier families are able to increase the cultivated area per family worker, pushing back the constraint of labour at first weeding. Poorer families send labour out, tightening their labour constraint. Regression 2:
Ha/family worker (87) = 2.3 + 0.0000154 × Gross investment (87) t = 3.4, n = 26, r 2 = 0.32, p < 0.01 Regression 3:
Ha/family worker (88) --- 3.4 + 0.000021 1 × Net investment (88) t=3.1, n=26, r 2--0.27,p<0-01
Wherefood is capital." N. W. Mali
209
FCFA ' 0 0 0
kg/ha
35
30
25
20
15
;10
200 5
0 1986
i 1987
r 1988
0 1989
Fig. 3. Yields and investment--Mourdiah, 1986-90. +, yield, year t; *, investment, year t + 1.
It is not surprising, therefore, that a family's ability to feed itself from its harvest is correlated with its investment. This was borne out for 1987 and 1988. Regression 4: Days subsistence (87) = 64 + 0.003 × Gross investment (87) t=5-8, n--26, p<0.01 Regression 5: Days subsistence (88) = 52 + 0.004 x Net investment (88) t -- 4.6, n = 26, p < 0.01 If the hypotheses is correct, a year o f high yields should be followed by a year of high investment. Short-cycle millet yields from a sample of fields near Mourdiah cultivated according to traditional practices were measured in 1986-89. The mean yields are correlated with the following year's mean per family investment, in three villages near Mourdiah, in Fig. 3. The excellent yields of 1988 were followed by increased investment in 1989, whereas 1989's poorer harvest was followed by lower investments in 1990. M o r e concrete evidence is provided by cross-section data. Regression 6: Net investment (88) = 132 + 0-003 x Days consumption (87) t -- 2.8, n -- 26, p < 0.02
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Ha per family worker 1988
Days subsistence
11I . . . . . . . .
88-9
1400 1200
÷
IOO0 6]
"
~
"
÷
/
800
i 4
'
800
#
400 20O 0 -100
-50
0
Seasonal investment
Fig. 4.
50 100 (FCFA'O00) 1988
150
Investment in extensive agriculture--two villages near Mourdiah, 1988. B, Ha per worker; +, days' subsistence.
Figure 4 sums up the farmers' position. A family with capital this year can push back the labour constraint, increase cultivated area and start the next year with capital. A family without capital cultivates a lower area per family member, raising the probability of a food deficit the following year. Note that Fig. 4 shows days subsistence for 1988-89, following the record yields of 1988 (median 628 kg/ha); 1987 data (median 140 kg/ha) would have shown significant food deficits.
6 COUNTERVAILING INFLUENCES Evidence from the cerele of Nara therefore demonstrates a familiar feature of capitalistic p r o d u c t i o n - - a tendency for the rich to accumulate and the poor to run down their capital stocks. This process is opposed, however, by certain social mechanisms which act to equalise the ratio of labour to capital across families: (a) Tithes. It is customary for Muslim family heads to give a tenth of all grain production over 600 kg to poorer families. (b) Threshing. Families with poor harvests thresh their own millet. After a good harvest, however, a family may hire threshing labour or provide free food at a threshing 'party'. (c) Winnowing. After a good harvest, a family allows women from other families to winnow the grain. They may be allotted a share of the grain or tacitly allowed to 'steal'. (d) Sharing of meals. A man will share his meal with all those present at the time. This has an egalitarian effect, since it is customary for a low-status man to visit a high-status man rather than vice versa.
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The Bambara accuse the Peuls of abusing this custom by loitering in Bambara villages. (e) External aid. When outsiders give aid, it is common for each family to receive an equal portion even if the donor intended the aid to be held in common by the village. This was illustrated by a survey of 34 villages receiving free pesticides and by the fate of three cereal banks near Mourdiah, where millet stocks were shared out as 'credits'. Since poorer families tend to be smaller, they receive more aid per capita. (f) Gifts. A member of one family may make a gift to a member of another less fortunate family. It is common, however, for a family to be forced by penury to leave its village while other villagers retain considerable wealth. 7 CONCLUSIONS A distinction is commonly made between cereals farming as a subsistence activity and cash-cropping as a form of capitalism (e.g. Odingo, 1974; Norman et al., 1981; Lachenmann, 1986; Becket, 1990). This distinction ignores the importance of wage capital in subsistence agriculture. In the cercle of Nara, a family's ability to produce food depends upon its ability to mobilise labour during the first weeding. Its ability to mobilise labour is in turn determined by its wage capital--the food stocks from the previous harvest. Families adjust the food/labour mix by means of the casual labour market, migration and changes in family composition. As in many mixed economies, social mechanisms exist whereby the distributional effects of the free market are mitigated. In conclusion, therefore, a farming system should not be dismissed as 'noncapitalist' or 'precapitalist' until the relationship between food stocks and labour use has been investigated. As well as contributing to our theoretical understanding of peasant economies, this finding has important implications for aid policy. If food is a major input into food production, and is seen as such by farmers, then the accepted wisdom that food aid discourages farming may have to be questioned. REFERENCES Annegers, J. F. (1973). Seasonal food shortages in West Africa. Ecol. Food and Nutr., 2, 251-77. Autier, P., D'Attilia, J.-P., Callewaert, B., Tamboura, B., Delamalle, J.-P. & Vevruycrusse, V. (1989). Migration and nutritional status in the Sahel. Disasters, 13(3), 247-54.
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Becker, L. C. (1990). The collapse of the family farm in West Africa? Evidence from Mali. Geogr. J., 156(3), 313-22. Benoit-Cattin, M. & Faye, J. (1982). L'exploitation agricolefamiliale en Afrique Soudano-Sah~lienne, Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 94 pp. Billings, M. (1975). Agricultural production in Mali. Devel. Digest, 13(2), 81-90. Creevey, L. E. (ed.) (1986). The role of women in Malian agriculture. In Women Farmers in Africa. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse, NY, pp. 19-49. Franke, R. W. (1984) Power, class and traditional knowledge in Sahel food production. In Studies in power and class in Africa, ed. I. L. Markowitz. Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 257-85. Fulton, D. & Toulmin, C. (1982). Socio-economic study of two villages in the SOgou region, Mali; A report. International Livestock Commission for Africa, Bamako. Jones, W. I. (1970). The food economy of Ba Dugu Djoliba, Mali. In African food production systems, ed. P. F. M. McLoughlin, pp. 265-306. Koenig, D. (1986). Social stratification and labor allocation in peanut farming in the rural Malian household. African Stud. Rev., 29(3), 107-27. Lachenmann, G. (1986). Rural development in Mali--destabilisation and social organisation. Quart. J. Int. Agric., 25(3), 217-33. Marchal, J.-Y. (1989). En Afrique Soudano Sah61iennne; la course contre le temps. In Le risque en agriculture, ed. M. Eldin & P. Milleville. Organisation de Recherches Scientifiques aux Territoires d'Outre-Mer, Paris, pp. 255-67. Mazur, R. E. (1984). Rural out-migration and labour allocation in Mali. In Rural Migration in Developing Nations. Comparative studies of Korea, Sri Lanka and Mali, ed. C. Golscheider. Westview, Boulder, pp. 209-88. Milleville, P. (1989). Activit6s agro-pastorales et al6a climatique en r6gion Sahblienne. In Le risque en agriculture, ed. M. Eldin & P. Milleville. Organisation de Recherches Scientifiques aux Territoires d'Outre-Mer, Paris, pp. 233-41. Norman, D. W., Norman, M. D. & Ouedraogo, I. (1981). Farm and village production systems in the semi-arid tropics of West Africa. Institute for Crop Research in the Semi-Arid Tropics, Patancheru, India, 94 pp. Odingo, R. S. (1974). Systems of agricultural production in the African areas of drought with special reference to the Sahelian zone of West Africa. Swedish Institute for Environmental Studies, Stockholm, 11 pp. Phillips, P. G. (1954). The metabolic cost of common West African agricultural activities. Trop. Med. and Hyg., 57(1), 12-20. Pollet, E. & Winter, G. (1968). L'organisation sociale du travail agricole des Soninke (Dyahunu, Mali). Cahiers d'Etudes Africaines, 32(4), 509-34. Sraffa, P. (1972). In Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities; Prelude to a Critique of Economic Theory. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 1972, pp. 3-17. Toulmin, C. (1983). Herders and farmers or farmer-herders and herder-farmers? Pastoral network paper 15d. Overseas Development Institute, London, 22 pp. Toulmin, C. (1986). Access to food, dry season strategies and household size among the Bambara of central Mali. IDS Bull., 17(3), 58-66. Turritin, J. (1988). Men, women and market trade in rural Mali, West Africa. Can. J. African Stud., 22(3), 583-604.
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Van Westen, A. C. M. & Klute, M. C. (1986). From Bamako with love: a case study of migrants and their remittances. Tijdschr. voor Econ. en Sociale Geogr., 77(1), 42-9. Veeneklaas, F. R., Ciss6, S., Gosseye, P. A., van Duivenbooden, N. & van Keulen, H. (1991). Competing for limited Resources: The Case of the 5th Region of Mali. Rep. 4: Development Scenarios. CABO-DLO, Wageningen, 143 pp.
Where Food is Capital: Labour Allocation in Cereals Production, N.W. Mali* A. R. Kremer 4, Dorset Place, Faversham, Kent, UK, ME13 8PP
& C. Lock University of Tasmania, Hobart 7001, Australia (Received 24 December 1991; accepted 12 April 1992)
A BS TRA C T Cereals farming in the cercle of Nara, N. IV. Mali, is described. Production is constrained by the availability of labour for weeding, which is in turn constrained by the supply of the wage good--food. Casual labour sales, migration and changes to family structure adjust labour use to the supply of food. This hypothesis is supported by cross-sectional statistical analysis. The process's regressive distributive tendencies are mitigated by social reallocation mechanisms. It is concluded that so-called subsistence production systems can appear markedly capitalist when food is considered as a means of production.
1 INTRODUCTION S t a n d a r d m o d e l s o f p e a s a n t f a r m e r decision m a k i n g are based u p o n the M a r s h a l l i a n t h e o r y o f the p r o f i t - m a x i m i s i n g firm. F a r m e r s a p p l y their * The data reported in this paper were obtained between 1986 and 1990 by the Mali Millet Pest Project, funded by the British Government's Overseas Development Administration (ODA) and managed by its Natural Resources Institute (NRI). The project used on-farm trials to assess the suitability of chemical pesticides for Sahelian millet. :~Present address: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Bath, Bath, BA2 7AY 197 Agricultural Systems 0308-521X/92/$05.00 © 1992 Elsevier Science Publishers Ltd, England. Printed in Great Britain
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endowments of labour and capital to land in such a way as to maximise profits and, in more sophisticated models, to avoid risk. An important element of these models is the treatment of labour and capital as distinct quantities. This has led to the description of peasant farming as noncapitalist unless, as in cash-cropping, capital items are visible. This paper, however, describes a situation in which it is difficult to distinguish between labour and capital: the farming economy of the Nara cercle in N.W. Mali. The supply of labour is determined by the supply of capital and the supply of capital is determined by the supply of labour in the previous year. This situation is brought about by the very nature of food. Food feeds labour, and labour produces food. This process, the production of commodities by means of commodities, has more in common with the dynamic classical or 'neooRicardian' models of Ricardo, Marx and Sraffa than with the static neoclassical model of peasant farming. It returns to 'the original picture of the system of production and consumption as a circular process', which 'stands in striking contrast to the view presented by modern theory, of a one-way avenue that leads from "Factors of Production" to "Consumption Goods"' (Sraffa, 1972).
2 BACKGROUND Before describing the two-way interactions between food and labour in N.W. Mali it is necessary to explain the technological and social background to farmers' decision making in that zone. Of particular importance are the organisation of cereals production and the variability of food availability.
2.1 The organisation of cereal production: the village, family and household The cercle of Nara contains several ethnic groups; the Bambara, Soninke (Sarakolle) and Gurrrga are sedentary cultivators, but the Soninke have traditionally been involved in commerce and the Gurrrga in Moslem priesthood. All own livestock. The Peul and Maure were originally nomadic pastoralists, but poorer grazing conditions since the 1960s have driven some to become sedentary cultivators (Toulmin, 1983). Maure pastoralists' livestock usually graze seasonal pastures in Mauritania between June and November. Sedentary cultivators of all ethnic groups live in nucleated villages, although some families set up a farming homestead for the growing
Where food is capital: N. IV. Mali
199
season. A village contains the descendants of its farmers, who are usually its leading citizens, families that have subsequently joined the village and the descendants of the slaves of these two groups, the latter are usually counted among the poorest. The village is composed of families (dou), groups of 5 to 50 people descended from a common male ancestor. Each family is led by a family head (doutigi), typically the oldest brother of the oldest generation. Other married men within the family, such as the doutigi's brothers and sons, head their own households (so) as sotigi. This structure is common to many religions of the Sahel (Norman et al., 1981; Benoit-Cattin & Faye, 1982). A household may break away from the family to become a family in its own right. This often occurs when the household head has the same father, but a different mother from the family head. Pollet & Winter (1968) found that a Soninke family head would pressure a household to leave the family if it was consuming more food than it produced. Creevey (1986) found 14% of families to be headed by women near Srgou. In the cercle of Nara, however, this appears to be a seasonal phenomenon. Only one female family head was found in 80 families sampled in the rainy season of 1990, but male migration during the dry season may leave the wife of the absent family head in charge of the compound. The village is headed by a chief (dougoutigi), but only the most authoritarian will offer a unilateral decision on a controversial problem. Most decisions are taken by a meeting of heads of nobler families, wherein the chief wields the strongest influence. Other men and boys may listen, but they do not speak; women are excluded. Villagers are conscious of a gradual tendency towards individualism. Colonial government eliminated the traditional collective food security strategy--warfare (Jones, 1970; Toulmin, 1986), reduced the family head's predominance by abolishing his right to own slaves (Pollet & Winter, 1968) and reduced the power of village councils by treating the chief as a village's sole representative. Norman et al. (1981) attribute the subsequent breakdown of village-level activities to capitalist penetration and the emergence of school learning as a source of authority alongside the traditional authority of age. Jones (1970) hypothesised that the arrival of new crops, such as groundnuts, reduced the value of the elder's experience. The management of food and labour is determined within the social structures described above. Fields can be managed by the village as a whole, by a family or by a household. Only very small areas are cultivated by a village work-team (ton). A ton is a group of individuals of the same age from different families that t Not blacksmiths, minstrels or the descendants of slaves.
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undertakes a particular task. Lachenmann (1986) characterised it as qnformal, spontaneous, non-conformist and non-homogeneous'. Traditionally, according to villagers, a ton of young men would cultivate the fields of family heads incapacitated by sickness. It would also manage a ton field whose output would finance village expenditures, such as well-digging. They were vaunted as a motor of rural development by the socialist government of Modibo Keita (1960-68), and were readopted in 1979 by the military government of Moussa Traore. Jones (1970) found that villages created ton fields or Mali/bro simply in the hope of receiving government aid, but this did not 'break the backbone' of the family (Becker, 1990). There was never a strong collectivist tradition in Bambara society (Franke, 1984). Family fields (foroba), allocated initially to a family head by the chief and retained by his family from generation to generation, account for over 85% of cultivated land, but the proportion varies from village to village. The foroba workteam consists of able adults and adolescents, although senior members of richer families may abstain. Accounts of married women's participation in the foroba team vary. Pollet & Winter (1968) found that Soninke women only helped plant and harvest the family field. Creevey (1986) reported that male members of a family pay for their wives' labour near S6gou. Koenig (1986) and Turritin (1988) found that women's labour made an important contribution to the cultivation of family fields, and Becker (1990) that married women worked in the foroba and household fields for 'as long a their labour is needed'. Muslim spiritual leaders advise against women working alongside men, and all the above note that a woman's participation is determined by the community's attitude to Islam. This study observed that women do not always contribute their labour to their husband's foroba free of charge, but they are an important source offoroba labour in the poorest families and in animist communities. Household heads in some families are permitted to work private fields (jonforo) in the evenings or for one day a week. In some villages, for reasons not yet understood, families are distinctly larger, averaging 50 to 100 members. In this case, the household and its private field are comparatively important. In some families, older married women, who have delegated domestic work to younger women, cultivate their own private fields (musoforo). For those women that did in 1987, the average cultivated area per woman in three villages was 0.4 ha, which amounted to 6% of the total area cultivated. The yield of the family field is kept in a granary inside the family enclosure. The family head usually measures out the grain for the day's meals and will try to keep the granary's contents a secret from outsiders.
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Where food is capital: N. W. Mali
TABLE 1 Days' Self-sufficiencyin Cereals in Three Villages near Mourdiah, 1987 Days' consumption
Families
Percentage of families
0-30 31-60 61-100 101-150 151-200 201-300 301 +
10 10 11 10 3 0 3
21 21 23 22 6 0 6
Total
47
100
Those who cultivated the family field have first call on meals from this granary. The yield of a private field is managed, often in great secrecy, by the individual who cultivated it. It may contribute to family meals, household meals, or cash earnings. Musoforo crops provide condiments, cash for women's expenditures and, only as a last resort grain for home consumption. 2.2 Variation in food availability
Cereal yields vary enormously in the cercle of Nara, because of variations in rainfall, pest attack and soil quality. In three villages near Mourdiah in 1987, the top 25% of families made 348 kg/ha on average, whereas the bottom 25% made 45 kg/ha. In 1988, average millet yields in Mourdiah were around 900 kg/ha. In Dilly, less than 100 km to the northwest, they were around 300 kg/ha. This inevitability leads to variation in food availability between years, villages and families, measured as the number of days during which a family can live off its own cereals production. In villages around Mourdiah in the cercle of Nara, the 1987, 1988 and 1989 harvests provided at least one year's cereal consumption for 6, 77 and under 5% of families, respectively. Table 1 illustrates the variation in self-sufficiency in three villages near Mourdiah in 1987.
3 THE LABOUR CONSTRAINT The Sahel's short growing season has driven farmers to adopt an extensive cultivation strategy to reduce risk (Toulmin, 1986; Milleville, 1989)
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202
TABLE 2 Labour Use Budgets for Millet in the Sahel: Various Studies (workdays/ha)
M o u r d i a h , Mali D a l o n g a b o u g o u , Mali b Dofin6na, Mali h 5th Region, Mali" Op6ration H a u t e Vall6e, Mali Dokola, Burkina J
Preparation and sowing
First weeding
Second weeding
10 6 8 13 29 15
21 9 20 12
14 a n/a n/a 12
Harvest
4 6 19 28 n/a n/a ... 19.5 ... n/a n/a 20 n/a
... 63 ... 30
Postharvest
20
u N o t always performed. b F u l t o n & T o u l m i n (1982). c Veeneklass et al. (1991). M a n u r e d fields with o x - d r a w n plough. d M a r c h a l (1989).
Marchal (1989) writing about northern Burkina Faso, describes labour use in agriculture as a 'race against time'. This phrase applies perfectly to the cercle of Nara. Here, cereals production is constrained not by the quantity of land (only 5% of arable land is cultivated), but by availability of labour for the first weeding. As Table 2 indicates, the first weeding takes up an important portion of total labour use. For agronomic reasons, moreover, the first weeding must be performed within a short time window. Short rainy seasons have
Jun
Uul ]AM(] SeD IOct
Nov IDec
Souna sowing
v~edlno harvest threshing winnowing
m
m
p,,-,-
Sanyo
sowing weeding harvest
n
threshing
m
winnowing
Sorghum
sowing
weeding harvest threshing winnowing
iiiim
Fig. 1.
Agricultural calendar--cercle of N a r a .
203
Where food is capital: N. IV. Mali AcUvlty Preparation
1
Weeding
Harvest
• of leak lebow use
July
Period Fig. 2.
Labour use, 1990--six villagesnear Mourdiah.
led to the widespread adoption of short-cycle millet, which accounted for 67% of land use in three villages near Mourdiah in 1987. They have also led to the practice of dry-sowing, whereby millet is made to germinate by the first heavy rain. These two factors ensure that much millet requires weeding between mid-July and mid-August (Fig. 1), producing a marked peak in labour demand (Fig. 2). It is common for fields to be abandoned for lack of weeding and it is significant that adulthood is defined as the ability to weed. Weeding by hoe consumes over three times as many calories per hour as standing at rest (Phillips, 1954), leading to an increased food requirement at a season when food stocks are low. These two factors interact to produce seasonal calorie shortages and restricted weight gain in children (Annegers, 1973). Grain production is therefore constrained by a family's ability to apply weeding labour to its fields, which is in turn determined by its capital--its stock of grain.
4 A D J U S T I N G THE FOOD/LABOUR RATIO The ratio of food stocks to labour use is, therefore, a key issue in farmers' decision making. Residual grain stocks at the end of the growing season would indicate that the family has missed an opportunity to produce more grain by taking on labour and extending its cultivated area. Excessive labour would lead to a food shortage. Villagers' strategies for adjusting the food/labour ratio are described below.
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4.1 Casual labour hire
Each village has a fixed daily wage rate, typically FCFA 750 (US $2.60) for weeding and FCFA 500 (US $1.75) for other activities. Wages are commonly paid in grain. The hirer provides his employee with meals. Wealthier families may hire labour by the month at a cheaper rate FCFA 5000-10000 per calendar month, plus meals). The financial returns to labour hire can be high. For a family with planted land that would otherwise be abandoned for lack of weeding, with a wage of FCFA 750/day, a weeding rate of 21 days/ha, expected yields of 500 kg/ha and 0 kg/ha for once-weeded and unweeded fields, respectively, and a millet price of FCFA 75/kg, the hire of weeding labour offers a 140% financial return over 6 months. One cannot say, however, whether labour hire increases or decreases a family's exposure to risk; when a grain deficit family hires labour it increases its exposure to yield variation, but reduces its exposure to price variation. Investment in agriculture was studied in 1987, 1988 and 1989 in three villages near Mourdiah; six villages, including the original three, were covered in 1990. Data were collected from each family head, on average every 10 days between planting and harvest and farmers showed themselves willing to provide information. Seasonal cash expenditure on agriculture between 1987 and 1990 is displayed in Table 3. Table 3 shows gross cash payments, but many families are forced by lack of food to dis-invest; they reduce the value of resources applied to their own fields by selling their labour out. Deducting the value of labour sales (disinvestment) reduces mean investment in 1990 from FCFA 10 300 to FCFA 3700 and median investment from FCFA 3000 to FCFA 1500.
TABLE 3 Seasonal Investmenta in Cereal Production, Near Mourdiah, 1987-90.
Investment~family Year 1987 1988 1989 1990
3 3 3 6
Mean investment~family
Coverage
( FCFA )
(US$)
villages ($0) villages (__)b villages ($22) villages ($11)
14400 15300 29 900 10300
51 53 104 36
Seed purchases are not included. bData not available.
Median (FCFA)
0 -6 335 3000
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205
TABLE 4
Seasonal Expenditure on Cereal Cultivation in Six Villages Near Mourdiah by Type, 1990
Families in sample US S/family Labour hire (%) Plough hire (%) Chemical inputs (%) Hoe purchase (%) Plough repair (%) Total
Families selling labour
Other families
All
38 15 0 26 0 29 45
67 48 62 2 <1 11 24
105 36 53 6 <1 14 27
100
100
100
Table 4 breaks down cash expenditure by type, showing the importance of labour hire in farm budgets. Indeed, after farmers have acquired their means to cultivate their land, labour hire accounts for 100% of seasonal expenditure. Table 4 also makes the distinction between families selling and not selling labour. The latter invested more than three times as much per family as the former. Labour sellers did not invest in labour hire. Only families with surplus food can hire labour in. Families with a food deficit have to sell labour. An anecdote from 1990 illustrates how food stocks affect the labour market. An old blind man without any children used to use profits from trading to hire other villagers to work his fields. When a consignment of food aid arrived in his village, he suddenly found that nobody wished to work for him. Although the hire of casual labour can 'fine-tune' a family's food/labour ratio, it is not of great absolute importance. Even in a year of low food stocks, casual labour only accounted for 14% of workdays (the village of Sekelo, 1990). To effect larger adjustments in their food/labour ratio families engage in seasonal or long-term migration.
4.2 Migration The allocation of workers between the family's village, seasonal migration and long-term migration is a key decision for the family, and takes the following considerations into account: (a) In the short term, migrants only earn enough to ensure their own survival. New arrivals in Bamako may earn as little as FCFA 3000 (US $10.50) per month as street vendors. Van Westen & Klute (1986) found that only 34% of migrants in their first year in Bamako sent
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remittances, as opposed to 80% of those who had been in Bamako for 8 to 10 years. The returns to migration to other destinations are presumably equally long term. (b) Long term migrants can make a substantial contribution to the family budget. Van Westen & Klute (1986) estimated that the average remittance from Bamako was FCFA 30 000 (US $105) per migrant family per year, enough to provide grain for three adults for a year. These considerations have brought about three distinct types of migration in the cercle of Nara: (a) Seasonal migration. A migration southwards follows the harvest, since the demand for labour is reduced during the dry season, No, some or all members of a family may leave, depending on the level of food stocks. Young adult males are the most likely to leave, family heads and mothers with children the least. After the 1990 harvest, 27% of families left their villages, along with 20% of the adults of other families (survey of 18 villages near Mourdiah). The arrondissement was subsequently described as being a high-risk zone by the famine early warning systems of the US and Malian governments. (b) Planned relocation. Because migration implies costs (loss of agricultural labour and relocation costs) in the short run and a possible benefit (improved earnings) in the long run, it can be viewed as an investment. Cohort studies in several zones of Mall have confirmed that the propensity to invest in long-term migration is positively related to a family's wealth (Mazur, 1984). In the cercle of Naras the Soninke display a marked tendency to invest in migration. (c) Forced migration. Food shortages drive poorer families southwards and prevent individual seasonal migrants from returning to their village. Thus, migration appears to 'evacuate' malnutrition from the food deficit zone (Autier et al., 1989). A survey of two sedentary agricultural villages near Mourdiah in 1987 produced the information upon families' cash incomes shown in Table 5. It is probable that family heads understated their incomes in the hope of reducing tax payments or increasing aid receipts, but there is no reason to believe that the breakdown by source is inaccurate. Some 38% of the cash incomes of these sedentary agricultural villages was found to come from migrants, and a further 14% from labour sales. 4.3 Adjustments to family structure Family structures are not fixed; they adjust to circumstances in such a way as to modify the food/labour ratio:
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207
TABLE 5
Family Cash Incomes a in Two Villages Near Mourdiah, 1987
Source of income
Income/family (FCFA)
(US $)
78 800 6 900 24 400 82 200 1 000 9 500 5 900
276 24 79 289 3 33 20
38 3 11 40 0 5 3
206 700
725
100
Receipts from migrants Casual agricultural labour Other labour Livestock sales Crop sales Carting Weaving Total
Percentage oftotal
a Women's cash incomes are managed separately from family cash incomes.
(a) Family size. A household has a greater incentive to remain within a richer family than a poorer one. Richer men are also able to pay higher bride prices than poorer men. There is, therefore, a tendency for families with capital to attract labour, as illustrated by Table 6. (b) The role of the household. Household production acts as a 'buffer' against hard times. In times of food shortage the family head can redirect labour from private fields to the family field and request grain from private fields for family meals. Billings (1975) noted a similar tendency in southern Mali for labour to be redirected from cotton to subsistence fields in years of poor rainfall, and in the more fertile arrondissement of Baginda, 50 km southeast of Bamako, private fields account for as much as 33% of farmed land (Becker, 1990). (At the same time, however, re-
TABLE 6
Family Size and per capita Wealth Holdings in Three Villages Near Mourdiah, 198(~87
Family size
1-9 10-14 15-30 30 +
Percentage of all families
30 30 26 15
Wealth per capita (FCFA)
(US $)
25700 28600 44500 61 000
90 100 160 210
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A. R. Kremer, C. Lock
duced agricultural productivity increases the importance of households relative to families as household heads' off-farm earnings replace family farming as a source of food.)
5 STATISTICAL EVIDENCE The hypothesis that a family's food stocks affect its capacity to extend its cultivated area can be tested by reference to empirical evidence from the cercle of Nara. It is not surprising that a family's investment is related to its investment in the previous year (regression 1), since both depend upon its liquidity position. (Investment in all the following equations is expressed in FCFA. Only gross investment was recorded for 1987; net investment, gross investment less a family's sales of labour, is a better indicator of its liquidity position.) Regression 1:
Net investment (88) = - 1 0 381 + 0-61 × Gross investment (87) t = 5-9, n -- 26, r 2 = 0.49, p < 0-01 Yields per hectare in 1988, however, were not correlated with yields per hectare in 1987 @2 = 0.04). Yields per hectare in 1987 and 1988 were not correlated with investment @2 = 0.01 in both years). This suggests that the main influence of investment is on cultivated area rather than on yield per hectare. Both 1987 and 1988 data show, moreover, that investments are positively related to hectares cultivated per family worker. By bringing in labour and maintaining ploughs, wealthier families are able to increase the cultivated area per family worker, pushing back the constraint of labour at first weeding. Poorer families send labour out, tightening their labour constraint. Regression 2:
Ha/family worker (87) = 2.3 + 0.0000154 × Gross investment (87) t = 3.4, n = 26, r 2 = 0.32, p < 0.01 Regression 3:
Ha/family worker (88) --- 3.4 + 0.000021 1 × Net investment (88) t=3.1, n=26, r 2--0.27,p<0-01
Wherefood is capital." N. W. Mali
209
FCFA ' 0 0 0
kg/ha
35
30
25
20
15
;10
200 5
0 1986
i 1987
r 1988
0 1989
Fig. 3. Yields and investment--Mourdiah, 1986-90. +, yield, year t; *, investment, year t + 1.
It is not surprising, therefore, that a family's ability to feed itself from its harvest is correlated with its investment. This was borne out for 1987 and 1988. Regression 4: Days subsistence (87) = 64 + 0.003 × Gross investment (87) t=5-8, n--26, p<0.01 Regression 5: Days subsistence (88) = 52 + 0.004 x Net investment (88) t -- 4.6, n = 26, p < 0.01 If the hypotheses is correct, a year o f high yields should be followed by a year of high investment. Short-cycle millet yields from a sample of fields near Mourdiah cultivated according to traditional practices were measured in 1986-89. The mean yields are correlated with the following year's mean per family investment, in three villages near Mourdiah, in Fig. 3. The excellent yields of 1988 were followed by increased investment in 1989, whereas 1989's poorer harvest was followed by lower investments in 1990. M o r e concrete evidence is provided by cross-section data. Regression 6: Net investment (88) = 132 + 0-003 x Days consumption (87) t -- 2.8, n -- 26, p < 0.02
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A. R. Kremer, C. Lock
Ha per family worker 1988
Days subsistence
11I . . . . . . . .
88-9
1400 1200
÷
IOO0 6]
"
~
"
÷
/
800
i 4
'
800
#
400 20O 0 -100
-50
0
Seasonal investment
Fig. 4.
50 100 (FCFA'O00) 1988
150
Investment in extensive agriculture--two villages near Mourdiah, 1988. B, Ha per worker; +, days' subsistence.
Figure 4 sums up the farmers' position. A family with capital this year can push back the labour constraint, increase cultivated area and start the next year with capital. A family without capital cultivates a lower area per family member, raising the probability of a food deficit the following year. Note that Fig. 4 shows days subsistence for 1988-89, following the record yields of 1988 (median 628 kg/ha); 1987 data (median 140 kg/ha) would have shown significant food deficits.
6 COUNTERVAILING INFLUENCES Evidence from the cerele of Nara therefore demonstrates a familiar feature of capitalistic p r o d u c t i o n - - a tendency for the rich to accumulate and the poor to run down their capital stocks. This process is opposed, however, by certain social mechanisms which act to equalise the ratio of labour to capital across families: (a) Tithes. It is customary for Muslim family heads to give a tenth of all grain production over 600 kg to poorer families. (b) Threshing. Families with poor harvests thresh their own millet. After a good harvest, however, a family may hire threshing labour or provide free food at a threshing 'party'. (c) Winnowing. After a good harvest, a family allows women from other families to winnow the grain. They may be allotted a share of the grain or tacitly allowed to 'steal'. (d) Sharing of meals. A man will share his meal with all those present at the time. This has an egalitarian effect, since it is customary for a low-status man to visit a high-status man rather than vice versa.
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The Bambara accuse the Peuls of abusing this custom by loitering in Bambara villages. (e) External aid. When outsiders give aid, it is common for each family to receive an equal portion even if the donor intended the aid to be held in common by the village. This was illustrated by a survey of 34 villages receiving free pesticides and by the fate of three cereal banks near Mourdiah, where millet stocks were shared out as 'credits'. Since poorer families tend to be smaller, they receive more aid per capita. (f) Gifts. A member of one family may make a gift to a member of another less fortunate family. It is common, however, for a family to be forced by penury to leave its village while other villagers retain considerable wealth. 7 CONCLUSIONS A distinction is commonly made between cereals farming as a subsistence activity and cash-cropping as a form of capitalism (e.g. Odingo, 1974; Norman et al., 1981; Lachenmann, 1986; Becket, 1990). This distinction ignores the importance of wage capital in subsistence agriculture. In the cercle of Nara, a family's ability to produce food depends upon its ability to mobilise labour during the first weeding. Its ability to mobilise labour is in turn determined by its wage capital--the food stocks from the previous harvest. Families adjust the food/labour mix by means of the casual labour market, migration and changes in family composition. As in many mixed economies, social mechanisms exist whereby the distributional effects of the free market are mitigated. In conclusion, therefore, a farming system should not be dismissed as 'noncapitalist' or 'precapitalist' until the relationship between food stocks and labour use has been investigated. As well as contributing to our theoretical understanding of peasant economies, this finding has important implications for aid policy. If food is a major input into food production, and is seen as such by farmers, then the accepted wisdom that food aid discourages farming may have to be questioned. REFERENCES Annegers, J. F. (1973). Seasonal food shortages in West Africa. Ecol. Food and Nutr., 2, 251-77. Autier, P., D'Attilia, J.-P., Callewaert, B., Tamboura, B., Delamalle, J.-P. & Vevruycrusse, V. (1989). Migration and nutritional status in the Sahel. Disasters, 13(3), 247-54.
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Van Westen, A. C. M. & Klute, M. C. (1986). From Bamako with love: a case study of migrants and their remittances. Tijdschr. voor Econ. en Sociale Geogr., 77(1), 42-9. Veeneklaas, F. R., Ciss6, S., Gosseye, P. A., van Duivenbooden, N. & van Keulen, H. (1991). Competing for limited Resources: The Case of the 5th Region of Mali. Rep. 4: Development Scenarios. CABO-DLO, Wageningen, 143 pp.