Climate change is anticipated to bring increasingly frequent “extreme events” – both drought and floods, making it even more difficult for Malian farmers to grow crops and raise livestock – thereby decreasing food security and incomes of the country's poorest and most vulnerable.  

FAO and the Government of Mali are working together to help to equip farmers with the knowledge and tools needed to adapt to a changing climate through a project entitled “Integrating climate resilience into agricultural production for food security in rural areas of Mali” (GCP/MLI/033/LDF).

The four-year project, launched in 2011, aims to provide an enabling environment to help farmers to better cope with day-to-day and season-to-season changes in their production systems. The project uses a variety of participatory and non-formal educational approaches, including farmer field schools (FFS).

The project also promotes institutional dialog and policy development to promote the mainstreaming of climate change adaptation measures into national and district-level strategies and programming. To this end, the agriculture sector policy revision mechanism has begun to incorporate climate change adaptation elements for the first time, and municipal rural strategy documents have been revised to include such aspects as well, endeavouring to ensure that appropriate measures have impact at local level.

Sustainable intensification through IPPM / FFS activities

The project has provided training on climate change adaptation methods to more than 200 extension agents − those already trained on “best-practice”  techniques through the Integrated Production and Pest Management (IPPM) programme, active in West Africa for over a decade. Additionally, it has trained more than 7 000 farmers via multiple season-long farmer field schools, 52 percent of whom were women.

Thanks to the training, farmers are more aware of, and better able to, incorporate climate change adaptation strategies and other best-practices into their production cycle. This includes such things as: better management of soil fertility and water resources; using early-maturing, drought-tolerant and disease-resistant seed varieties; and mapping and adapting cropping calendars. Helping to increase diversity will enhance economic and ecological resilience by integrating a greater variety of field and cover crops, together with management and restoration of local trees and shrubs. Specific training modules also help farmers to better understand and connect to market opportunities. Overall, these activities aim to help farmers boost agricultural productivity while rebuilding fragile natural resources, leading to enhanced ecological, economic and social resilience.

Partners

FAO is working closely with various partners in Mali to achieve its goals, including: Chambres d’agriculture; Compagnie Malienne de Développement des Textiles; Direction Nationale de l’Agriculture; Ministère de l'agriculture; Ministère de l’environnement; Office du Niger; and other partners, such as farmer organizations.   

FAO is grateful for the support provided to the project by the Global Environment Facility and the Government of Mali.