PASS II

• to facilitate management and decision-making at the scale of sectors, territories and communities by consolidating an information system on agrarian dynamics in the cotton zone,

• to sustainably increase the income of farms by creating innovations in partnership and by promoting approaches to support producers contributing to their dissemination.

To these two objectives correspond two complementary lines of research:

• one on the information system on agrarian dynamics in cotton growing areas,

• and the other on the sustainable intensification of farming systems into which 5 activities are divided.

One of these activities more particularly concerns the Divecosys system since it is dedicated to the development of integrated protection strategies for cotton growing. It is under the responsibility of three researchers, Téréta Idirssa (IER), Togola Mamoutou (IER) and Renou Alain (CIRAD), who will benefit from support missions from CIRAD experts.
Its objectives are to reduce the use of insecticides in cotton growing by promoting and improving two innovations: threshold treatments and manual topping of cotton plants.
The first already saves 70% of insecticides (Renou et al ., 2012) and the second reduces populations of bollworms (Renou et al ., 2011), the main cotton pests in Mali (Cabanilla et al. ., 2005).

Within this activity, various actions are carried out:

• training for producers and supervisors,
• monitoring of phytosanitary practices,
• tests with producers by applying an action research approach in partnership and going as far as the dissemination of innovations,
• and support research in the station to specify the conditions for implementing the two phytosanitary innovations in order to obtain the best effects, whether or not they interact with other innovations.

These actions are carried out in six villages (Benguéné, Ziguéna, Nafégué, Kokélé, Katabantankoto and Kafara) chosen to represent the diversity of the cotton-growing areas of Mali and at the Farako research station near Sikassso.