Environmental Risks Associated with Cotton Growing in Francophone Africa: Assessment and Current Developments

With few exceptions, cotton is grown on small family farms in Sub-Saharan Africa. Cotton is a rainfed crop here, and it is produced as part of a cropping system that includes food crops, grown either for commercial purposes (maize, cowpeas) or for home consumption (millet, sorghum). The amount of land currently planted in cotton in the CFA zone is between 2.2 and 2.5 million hectares. In 2006-2007, output in the CFA zone was the lowest since the start of the century, yielding less than 800,000 metric tons of lint (versus a record output of 1,126,000 metric tons in 2004-2005), while in East and Southern Africa, output totaled approximately 460,000 metric tons of lint on a cultivated area estimated at 2 million hectares (ICAC, 2007). Since the bulk of the West African output is exported, this group of countries now ranks fourth worldwide, recently dislodged from its position as third largest exporter by India, and furthermore threatened by Brazil (ICAC, 2008). Nevertheless, cotton production remains a key sector in the subregion’s development programs. Cotton growing requires the use of fertilizers (organic and mineral) and also pesticides, for the most part insecticides. In Mali, for example, more than 2.6 million liters of formulated emulsible concentrate products were needed in 1999. In Benin and Burkina Faso, the figures are likely similar or even higher. At the current stage of development of the cotton growing areas, the use of inputs is essential to increase productivity, but for agriculture to be sustainable, environmental protection is of critical importance. This paper will therefore examine the sources of risks to the environment and human health, and look at a number of measures for limiting the impact of such factors