Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-jkksz Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T11:04:11.448Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Breaking up the bottlenecks in food-crop and cotton cultivation in northern Côte d'Ivoire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2011

Thomas J. Bassett
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

It is widely recognised that seasonal labour bottlenecks present major obstacles to peasant farmers seeking to expand agricultural output in sub-Saharan Africa. Evidence from Nigeria and Sierra Leone, for example, reveals that labour shortages and limited income to hire off-farm labour have historically constrained rural producers from intensifying and enlarging their agricultural operations (Norman et al., 1979: 42–7; Watts, 1983: 202–3; Richards, 1985: 96). Many attempts by colonial and contemporary African States to promote food crop and export crop production failed, in part, because of peasant resistance to the threat of subsistence insecurity associated with labour conflicts in the agricultural calendar. Richards's (1986) study of the failure of a series of labour-intensive wet rice cultivation projects in central Sierra Leone illustrates the degree to which peasant agricultural practices represent adjustments to labour-supply problems. Given the pervasiveness and importance of seasonal labour constraints in African agricultural systems, it is surprising that ‘few studies have provided insights into the adjustment in labor use resulting from the introduction of cash crops and new technologies’ (Eicher and Baker, 1982: 99).

Résumé

Suppression des problèmes des cultures alimentaires et de la culture du coton dans le nord de la Côte d'Ivoire

Cet article examine comment les paysans de la région du Katiali, au nord de la Côte d'Ivoire, font face aux problèmes de main-d'oeuvre dans un système d'exploitation concentré sur la culture du coton. Il analyse les solutions, durant les périodes de travail les plus intensives, chez des families de statuts économiques différents et ceci à trois niveaux: (1) au niveau de la gestion du travail, (2) au niveau des pratiques agricoles et (3) dans le contexte d'un changement de culture. Des essais de rationalisation de l'emploi de la main-d'oeuvre durant les périodes difficiles semblent être la cause principale des changements du système d'exploitation. Les principaux changements affectent l'emploi du temps des activités agricoles, le choix des cultures, l'utilisation de techniques modernes et l'organisation sociale du travail. Cette réorganisation de la production agricole doit être considérée dans le contexte (1) de facteurs déterminants locaux, comme la distribution pluviométrique, les systèmes de cultures compétitifs, la différenciation familiale et le souci du paysan de subvenir à ses besoins et (2) de facteurs politico-économiques plus généraux comme les politiques de développement des systèmes coloniaux et modernes et le rôle interventionniste des capitaux internes et étrangers dans l'économie rurale.

Type
Breaking labour bottlenecks
Information
Africa , Volume 58 , Issue 2 , April 1988 , pp. 147 - 174
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Amin, S. 1967. Le Développement du capitalisme en Côte d'Ivoire. Paris: Editions Minuit.Google Scholar
Aubertin, C. 1980. Histoire et création d'une region ‘sous-développée’ (le nord ivoirien). Abidjan: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
Bassett, T. J. 1985. ‘Food, Peasantry and the State in Northern Ivory Coast, 1898–1982’. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Baulin, J. 1982. La Politique intérieure d'Houphouet-Boigny. Paris: Editions Eurafor Press.Google Scholar
Bernstein, H. 1979. ‘African peasantries: a theoretical framework’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 6 (4): 421–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bigot, Y. 1979. ‘Analyse techno-économique des systèmes de production cotoncéréale dans le nord-ouest de la Côte d'Ivoire’, mimeo. Bouaké: Institut des Savanes.Google Scholar
Bigot, Y. 1981. ‘Croissance cotonnière, travail feminin et évolution du système de production agricole dans le nord de la Côte d'Ivoire’, paper presented at the AASA/Ford Foundation conference on ‘Women's Contribution to Food Production and Rural Development in Africa’, Lomé, 1–5 June.Google Scholar
Campbell, B. 1984. ‘Inside the miracle: cotton production in the Ivory Coast’, in Barker, J. (ed.), The Politics of Agriculture in Tropical Africa, pp. 143–71. Beverly Hills: Sage.Google Scholar
CIDT. 1986. Rapport annuel d'activité, Campagne 85–86. Bouaké: CIDT.Google Scholar
Cleave, J. 1974. African Farmers: labor use in the development of smallholder agriculture. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Coulibaly, S. 1978. LePaysan sénoufo. Abidjan: Nouvelles Editions Africaines.Google Scholar
Eicher, C., and Baker, D.. 1982. Research on Agricultural Development in sub-Saharan Africa: a critical survey. East Lansing: Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University, International Research Paper No. 1.Google Scholar
Eponou, T. 1985. ‘Evolution des systèmes alimentaires en Côte d'Ivoire: le cas de la ville d'Abidjan et de la région de Korhogo’, mimeo. July.Google Scholar
Fargues, P. 1983. ‘La dynamique démographique des producteurs de vivrières’, in Les Cultures vivrières: élément stratégique du développement agricole ivorien (Actes du seminaire organisé par le Centre Ivoirien de Recherches Economiques et Sociales du 11 au 15 mai 1982), vol. 1: pp. 83–104. Abidjan: CIRES.Google Scholar
Folbre, N. 1986. ‘Hearts and spaces: paradigms of household economies’, World Development, 14 (2): 245–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glaze, A. 1981. Art and Death in a Senufo Village. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Guyer, J. 1980. ‘Food, cocoa and the division of labour in two West African societies’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 22 (3): 355–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, J. 1984. ‘Naturalism in models of African production’, Man, 19 (3): 371–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guyer, J., and Peters, P.. 1987. ‘Introduction’ to ‘Conceptualizing the Household: issues of theory and policy in Africa’, special issue of Development and Change, 18 (3): 197–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harris, O. 1981. ‘Households as natural units’, in Young, K., Wolkowitz, C. and McCullagh, R. (eds.), Of Marriage and the Market, 49–68. London: CSE Books.Google Scholar
Hermann, E. 1981. Analysis of Selected Agricultural Paras totals in the Ivory Coast. Abidjan: USAID.Google Scholar
IRCT. 1964. Organisation—Activités—1963. Bouaké: IRCT.Google Scholar
Jones, C. 1986. ‘Intra-household bargaining in response to the introduction of new crops: a case study from northern Cameroon’, in Moock, J. (ed.), Understanding Africa's Rural Households and Farming Systems, 105–23. Boulder, Colo.: West view Press.Google Scholar
Lele, U. 1986. ‘Women and structural transformation’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 34 (2), 195–221.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Le Roy, X. 1980. L'Introduction des cultures de rapport dans l'agriculture vivrière sénoufo: le cas de Karakpo. Abidjan: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
Marcussen, H., and Torp, J.. 1982. Internationalization of Capital: prospects for the Third World. London: Zed Press.Google Scholar
Meillassoux, C. 1975. Femmes, greniers et capitaux. Paris: Maspero.Google Scholar
Norman, D. W., Pryor, D. H. and Gibbs, C. J. N.. 1979. Technical Change and the Small Farmer in Hausaland, Northern Nigeria. East Lansing: Department of Agricultural Economics, Michigan State University, African Rural Economy Paper No. 21.Google Scholar
Peltre-Wurtz, J., and Steck, B.. 1979. Influence d'une société de développement sur le milieu paysan: coton et culture attelée dans la région de la Bagoué (nord Côte d'Ivoire). Abidjan: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
République de Côte d'Ivoire, Ministère du Plan. 1963. Étude régionale de Bouaké, vol. 2, l'Économie. Paris: SEDES.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1983. ‘The politics of African land use’, African Studies Review, 26 (2): 1–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richards, P. 1985. Indigenous Agricultural Revolution. London: Hutchinson.Google Scholar
Richards, P. 1986. Coping with Hunger: hazard and experiment in an African rice farming system. London Research Series in Geography, No. 11. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar
SEDES. 1965. Région de Korhogo, étude de développement socio-économique, vol. 2, Rapport Sociologique, vol. 3, Rapport Agricole. Paris: SEDES.Google Scholar
Sement, G. 1980. ‘Etude des effets secondaires de la fertilisation minérale sur le sol dans des systemes culturaux á base de coton en Côte d'Ivoire: premières résultats en matière de correction’, Coton et Fibres Tropicales, 35 (2): 229–48.Google Scholar
Thompson, E. P. 1967. ‘Time, work-discipline and industrial capitalism’, Past and Present, 38, 56–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Watts, M. 1983. Silent Violence: food, famine and peasantry in northern Nigeria. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Watts, M., and Bassett, T. J.. 1985. ‘Crisis and change in African agriculture: a comparative study of the Ivory Coast and Nigeria’, African Studies Review, 28 (4): 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitehead, A. 1981. ‘“I'm hungry, mum”: the politics of domestic budgeting’, in Young, K., Wolkowitz, C. and McCullagh, R. (eds.), Of Marriage and the Market, 88–111. London: CSE BooksGoogle Scholar