Shortly after the overthrow of the Traoré regime in early
1991,
several thousand cotton farmers in the southern part of Mali rose up to
demand significant policy changes in cotton production and marketing.
This rural revolt symbolised a new era of ‘democracy in the
countryside’, and brought forth a vital, new political actor (the
National Union of Cotton and Food Crop Producers, Syndicat des
Producteurs de Coton de Vivriers, SYCOV) in Malian politics. After
listening to more than thirty years of governmental populist pronouncements,
Mali's cotton growers finally had a real opportunity to
realise a measure of empowerment.
Earlier assessments of agricultural development and technology
policy-making in Mali confirmed the need to see SYCOV in the long
tradition of discontented farmers' movements around the world. This
article places SYCOV in a broader political and global setting. It
explores how an analysis of the union's emergence and its political
relationships can improve our understanding of the contours and
dynamics of democratisation in Mali, and perhaps throughout sub-Saharan
Africa.