Drought, nomads and the price of peanuts

Task 3

Read the two short text items in the tables below, and describe the likely advantages and disadvantages of each approach for:

i) the farmer

ii) the commercial peanut buyers

iii) the government

iv) the nomadic herdsman

v) the European customer

Which approach is more likely to resist a period of drier weather?

Traditional agriculture

A mix of grain crops such as sorghum and millet with vegetables grown closer to the village. Some animals are kept. The farmer is very skilled at protecting the land and rotates the crops so that the land has time to recover. Little artificial fertilizer is available. In some places near the desert’s edge, nomadic Tuareg are allowed – in return for payment or bartered goods – to graze the fields and boundaries when the crops are gathered in or when the field is fallow. The work is very hard and very little surplus is created, but in normal years the family can get by. Photo: © Yann Arthus-Bertrand/Impact.

Cash cropping

Planting peanuts or other crops for sale is tempting to poor farmers. The returns can be good and many of the sorghum and millet fields are converted. In order to maintain soil fertility, artificial fertilizers are needed. The cash crop needs more water, more often. There is little grazing and fewer fallow periods. The nomadic Tuareg has less access to grazing and they must use the poorer land in the desert’s edge. In bad years, the farmer may be in debt for fertilizer and in good years, as more and more farmers plant cash crops, the price may fall – with the same result of indebtedness. The soils are often soon exhausted.

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