From abundance to scarcity: Consequences of large scale land acquisitions in central Mali
Camilla Toulmin
This paper explores how a village with abundant land reserves in 1980 could find itself land scarce just 25 years later. A combination of interviews, aerial and satellite images shows trends in land use around the village of Dlonguebougou (DBG) in the Ségou region of central Mali from 1952 onwards. The first factor accounting for the recent filling up of space around the village is demographic growth and extensive land use practices amongst farming communities; the second, and more important factor is the large inflow of incoming farmers evicted by large-scale investment in irrigated agriculture. The establishment of a large new sugar-cane plantation has had particularly adverse impacts on villages next to the scheme and the wider landscape upto 100km away. Following promulgation of the Loi Foncier Agricole in 2017, National government needs to take the lead in resolving the multitude of problems generated by large-scale land investment.
Event: Land Governance in an Interconnected World_Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty_2018
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