Living in the paddies: a social science perspective on how inland valley irrigated rice cultivation affects malaria in Northern Cote d'Ivoire

Renaud De Plaen et al., 'Living in the paddies: a social science perspective on how inland valley irrigated rice cultivation affects malaria in Northern Cote d'Ivoire', Tropical Medicine and International Health, vol. 8(5), pp.459-470, 2003

This village was not studied by other teams of the Consortium and was used as a control to assess if the presence of biomedical teams in other studied villages had an influence on farmers? answers (about the perception of malaria and its cause). However, it is important to note that according to the MARA malaria endemicity map, modeling disease distribution based on environmental and empirical measured prevalence rates, both geographical zones appeared similar with regard to malaria prevalence and risks. However, since R2 villages have less highlands available for agriculture, the total surfaces of cotton grown are inferior as in R1 villages. From a critical geography standpoint, food responsibility transfer could be considered a strategy developed by male farmers to access the benefits resulting from inland valley irrigated rice cultivation. Such a strategy would be similar in content, but not in form, to that adopted by men in The Gambia, who modified the status of lowland fields from individual to familial to access profits generated by rice agriculture (Carney & Watts 1991; Carney 1993). Schroeder (1999) also discusses how male farmers in The Gambia utilized development programmes established under the banner of environmental stability to take over women's benefits earned from the implementation of other, ?more progressive,? development programmes geared to gender equity. In northern Côte d'Ivoire, by reducing their contribution to food production, men practically forced women to assume a greater share of the provision of food for the household. This strategy not only allowed men to access the food produced by women in the inland valleys, but reduced their obligation vis?à?vis the household and gave them the opportunity to devote more time and highlands agricultural fields to remunerating activities such as cotton cultivation.