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PESTICIDE ACTION NETWORK NORTH AMERICA UPDATES SERVICE
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Ultra-Low Volume Pesticides Ineffective for Farmers in Mali
July 7, 1994
A six year study in the West African nation of Mali concluded
that ultra-low volume (ULV) insecticides are prohibitively
expensive for local farmers and provide such a low rate of
financial return on millet crops that foreign or domestic
subsidies of ULV pesticides cannot be justified. Although
some of the ULV pesticide applications did increase yields,
the study found that its use in Mali is impractical and
overly risky for the country's poor farmers.
The study, conducted by Britain's Natural Resources Institute
(NRI) between 1985 and 1991, responded to a request by
Mali's Plant Protection Service to investigate pest control
methods for millet, the main staple of MaliUs Sahelian zone.
In 1983, 40 to 60% of the millet in northwest Mali was
destroyed by pests, including grasshoppers, head miner moths
and millet stem-borer. The principal objective of the study
was to demonstrate a practical system of pest management at
the farmer level that could be extended to farmers living in
other areas of the Sahel.
The study focused on ULV insecticides (including ULV Ripcord
(cypermethrin) and ULV Karate), since their use on Sahelian
millet has been widely promoted by foreign donors. In
theory, these pesticides are more appropriate for poor
farmers than other chemicals since relatively low volumes are
needed and expenses are comparatively low. Even so, the
costs of spraying equipment alone for these pesticides was
approximately $112 in 1991, well beyond the means of most
Malian farmers.
The NRI study stressed the great risk associated with ULV
insecticides for Mali's agriculturalists. In five of the
thirteen trials, farmers experienced negative financial
returns, a success rate that Rwould repel a western
investment banker, let alone a farmer living hand-to-mouth in
the Sahel,S the study noted. The only year ULV produced good
financial returns was 1988, when rainfall was abundant and
pests were few -- hardly a typical year in Mali.
The study also found that ULV pesticides are extremely
expensive for individual farmers. With a mean agricultural
cash investment of $36 per family (under $4 per hectare), the
cost of ULV treatment ($14.80 per hectare) was clearly
unrealistic for most families in the study area. The high
expense and risky nature of ULVs were demonstrated when the
project attempted to sell additional treatments to 20 project
farmers in 1988. Not a single farmer bought the pesticides,
before or during the growing season.
Instead, farmers preferred to invest in alternative pest
control methods, such as hiring labor for weeding, which can
produce extremely high financial returns. Given the average
grain price, daily wage and weeding rate, a farmer could
obtain a financial return of 140% from hired weed control.
RThis is a high target for ULV insecticides to match,S the
study remarked. Hiring labor is also extremely beneficial
for local employment and kinship ties. Since Malian farmers
seek to extend their cultivated area to spread risk, hiring
labor makes sense, while investment in ULV pesticides
concentrates resources into a single area, increasing chances
of crop loss.
The study's authors also mention some of the difficulties
they experienced conducting their research. These included
problems recruiting poor farmers to participate in the study,
since poorer families were more likely to be away seeking
off-farm income and were more cautious of modern technology
and economic risk. The study also had difficulties
recruiting women as project farmers, since women tend to farm
smaller fields in Mali and could not provide the 1 hectare
needed for trial purposes. In 1990, for example, only 11
women participated in the study (out of 328 farmers), most
from comparatively wealthy families.
Despite these shortcomings, NRIUs study provides an
interesting critique of ULV insecticide use in Mali. The
report demonstrates that pesticides are prohibitively
expensive for many African farmers, so that only donor
subsidies can make the use of these agrochemicals possible.
But, as the authors conclude, RULV spraying offers such a low
and variable financial return on Sahelian millet that it is
hard to justify any subsidy at all . . . On the basis of the
projectUs trial results, one cannot recommend the promotion
or subsidization of ULV pesticides for millet in the Sahel.S
Source: N.D. Jago, A.R. Kremer and C. West, RPesticides on
Millet in MaliS, Natural Resources Institute, Bulletin 50,
1993.
Contact: Natural Resources Institute, Central Avenue, Chatham
Maritime, Kent ME4 4TB, United Kingdom; phone (44-634) 88 00
88; fax: (44-634) 88 00 66.
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The Pesticide Action Network Updates Service (PANUPS) is a
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