11. Groundnuts were the most important cash crop grown. About 50% of the sample households sold some quantity of groundnuts during the year. One in every three groundnut selling households sold groundnuts soon after harvest (i.e. between October and January), while about 20% did so in the inter-season between harvest and the next cropping season.
12. Sorghum and millet, the staple food crops in the area, were rarely sold for cash (only 12% of the households in the sample sold them for cash). They were usually traded on a non-cash basis such as in-kind payments for harvesting and threshing labour. Non-producing households in particular build up substantial grain reserves through this type of transfers. Table 4 shows in percentage terms a typical farm household's acquisition and disposal pattern of food crops during the 1987/88 cropping season.
13. The bulk of the total stock of food crops (90%) was obtained from a farm household's own production, while 8% was added from purchases during the pre-planting season presumably when the initial stock from own production has been depleted. Transfers into the stock accounted for only 2% of the total. In respect of disposals, 75% of the total consisted of home consumption while 14% was transferred out and 11% sold for cash.
Table 4. Food crop acquisition and disposal patterns of an average farm household in the semi-arid zone of Mali, 1987/88
|
Sources |
Acquisitions % |
Main period of transaction |
|
Own production |
90 |
Post-harvest |
|
Purchases |
8 |
Pre-planting |
|
Transfers (gifts and payments in kind received) |
2 |
Post-harvest |
|
|
Disposals % |
|
|
Home consumption |
75 |
Year-round |
|
Sales |
11 |
Post-harvest |
|
Transfers (gifts and payments in kind given out) |
14 |
Post-harvest |
