December 16, 2021

Facilitating Systems Change in the Malian Vegetable Sector

Fresh Produce

Mali

Mali's vegetable sector has great potential with a rapidly growing middle class that is consuming more vegetables and becoming more demanding of their quality.

With its vast arable land, Mali has the largest undeveloped land holdings in the region. Less than 10% of the estimated 40 million hectares of arable land is cultivated. Unlike most urban centers in the region, Mali's cities have land available for horticulture in peri-urban areas (API MALI publication, Investing in the Fruit and Vegetable Sector in Mali). Despite this strong potential, Malian markets are invaded by imported products. Local production, for its part, is still dominated by major constraints that make it less productive and competitive on the local and sub-regional markets.

For almost two years now, SCS International, in partnership with 2SCALE, has been working on the establishment of an informal alliance on systemic change within the Malian market garden sector.

The idea of sectoral change based on the development and implementation of a common quality guarantee reference system recognized by all, aimed mainly at reducing the health risks related to the consumption of vegetables from all sources; through the intensive production and marketing on local markets of healthy, traceable vegetables with a safe and reliable quality control system.

In its sector change approach, 2SCALE first identifies a bottleneck that cannot be solved by the partnership or value chain actors alone, but that deeply affects business development. Second, it facilitates the establishment of sub-sectoral platforms in which the business champion and his/her peers make concrete proposals for public policy change based on the analysis of the identified problems. Finally, stakeholders can review progress, commit to targets, and monitor actions and concrete changes.

Currently, in the Malian vegetable sector, production is limited by several factors such as the lack of professionalism of producers, the weak organization of the market, climate change, access to water, the weakness of the means of production, as well as the high rate of post-harvest losses due to the abusive use of chemical inputs (fertilizers, pesticides). This constitutes a real risk for the health of Malian consumers and a considerable loss of income for the actors in the vegetable value chain. Therefore, the challenges observed exceed the ambitions of a partnership limited to SCS International-2scale and require a strong involvement of all actors of the value chain.

To address all of these challenges, SCS collaborated with other actors, including government services, to introduce an inclusive solution that could impact all actors and lead to systemic change in the vegetable value chain.

Thus, on November 25, a workshop was held in Bamako to set up an Informal Alliance for systemic Change (AIC) in the vegetable sector in Mali. The ambition of the Alliance is, with the quality repository and with awareness raising, to organize the production, processing and marketing on a large scale of healthy vegetables of good quality and affordable with a system of traceability and quality guarantee for the benefit of the common Malian producers, processors and consumers.

The event was marked by the presence of several public and private personalities, particularly the Minister of Rural Development of Mali, who did not fail to point out, in his speech, the significance of this willingness of the private sector to pilot an idea of change to improve the living conditions of the population. He also testified to the commitment of the Ministry to accompany the initiative. He said:

Because of climate change, a change of behavior is currently essential for sustainable agriculture in our country. This initiative is quite in line with the priority objectives of the ministerial department concerning food and nutritional security. I would therefore like to reassure you of the constant support of my department for the successful completion of this project for the systemic change of the vegetable sector in Mali.

The Program Director 2SCALE, Marina Diboma, who was visiting Mali at the same time, participated in the event. She took the opportunity to address the various actors involved in this dynamic of change. According to her, effective change always requires a critical mass of actors. The outcome of such a process will also reduce the quantities of imported vegetables and thus propel economic growth on a national scale. That is why she requested the support of the highest authorities of Mali and its public services in favor of this initiative.

In addition, many social impacts are expected from this initiative, namely the preservation of public health of the population, the protection of the environment, the increase of the incomes of the actors of the value chain, in particular for the women and the young people and the socio-economic blooming in rural areas. Through intensive communication and strong sensitization of consumers and farmers' organizations, the alliance will lay the foundation for developing a structured market and an efficient supply chain to support intensive and sustainable production according to the standard recognized by all.

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