Abstract
This study of a rural Malian community in West Africa investigates food procurement patterns that combine subsistence grain production with a variety of income generating activities. It finds dependence on food purchases widespread and revenue from the own-account activities of nonhousehold heads essential to food security. Gender and the wealth of households are found to influence some, but not all, income generating activities and expenditures. Three household food procurement profiles are identified: investment in cattle, market gardens and bush extraction, and remittances. The case study village has agroecological characteristics and market proximity, which set it and other urban hinterland villages apart from the more cotton- and cattle-based zones of southern Mali. Own-account income generating activities may be able to increase revenue for women and junior men through a reallocation of household resources without entirely undermining the basis for a larger subsistence-oriented household.
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Becker, L.C. Garden Money Buys Grain: Food Procurement Patterns in a Malian Village. Human Ecology 28, 219–250 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007020104053
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1007020104053