2023 Volume 43 Pages 1-27
The Sudano-Sahelian Mali once supported a ring system of land and soil management, with permanent croplands near housing compounds, a bush ring with fallow rotations, and an outer forest/savanna ring for grazing. Because of the expansion of permanently cropped fields into the bush ring, the landscape is now sharply dichotomised into the compound and forest/savanna rings. This ring management system features intensified internal recycling of nutrients from the forest/savanna ring to crop fields in the compound ring, supported by an integrated crop-livestock system. This study investigated how the villagers have maintained the crop-livestock integration against various resource constraints. We found that determinants and rationales of the crop cultivation and soil fertility management (SFM) practices commonly observed in Sudano-Sahelian West Africa have not changed. Those SFM practices (manure application from indigenous or improved pens and corralling) are the integration with diversified cattle grazing and transhumance patterns. The locations of watering sources and palatable pasture grasses and the SFM priorities of the cattle herd manager were the primary determinants and rationales of cattle management patterns in the study area. Increasing crop production will likely require exploiting untapped organic resources from peripheral forest/savanna rings and wider use of the improved pen and compost preparation techniques.
