Characterisation of soil degradation under intensive rice production in Office du Niger zone of Mali

Food security is a major priority of the most Sahelian governments. With the cyclic droughts, irrigation has shown the potential of ensuring self sufficiency in food production. Unfortunately, soils of irrigated areas in Sub Sahara African countries have continued to be degraded as a result of poor irrigation management practices. In the “Office du Niger” zones, for example, producers and extension workers are concerned about emerging soil degradation symptoms such as salinisation/alkalinisation or sodisation. Whereas the above problems require urgent attention, the phenomenon has been treated as localised and therefore not very important. From 1995 to 1999, studies were conducted by “the Pole regional de recherche sur les Systemes Irrigues (PSI)” which was a regional networking project, to determine the nature, importance and dynamics of soil degradation processes in irrigated zones of Mali