COORDINATION PROCESSES IN A COLLECTIVELY MANAGED CROPPING SYSTEM - DOUBLE CROPPING OF IRRIGATED RICE IN SENEGAL

Collective management of cropping systems is common in tropical countr ies when one production factor (e.g. machinery or an irrigated scheme) is shared by a number of farmers. To achieve their technical objectiv es in these contexts, farmers have to co-ordinate decision-making proc esses among themselves and with their economic partners. A 3-year stud y was carried out on two irrigated schemes in the Senegal river delta, its aim was to understand (1) the problems farmers' organizations man aging schemes faced when carrying out annual double cropping of rice a nd (2) how they managed to co-ordinate the different actors (individua l farmers, contractors and collective organizations) interacting on th ese schemes. The results presented here relate mainly to the harvest p art of the problem. They show double cropping success varies from one site to another and from one year to another, depending on different s tarting dates and global harvest performances. The comprehensive model proposed to explain this diversity includes (1) analysing individual farmers' and contractors' decision-making processes indicating the unc ertainty of their behaviour and its effects on plot conditions (maturi ty and trafficability) and machiner), performances and (2) classifying collective co-ordination processes under three main strategies of con tractualizing relations with local contractors by granting harvest mon opolies, simplifying complex decisions such as choosing a harvest star ting date at scheme level and adjusting to unforseen Events during tas k operation, mainly by looking for extra combine harvesters. The effic iency of these strategies is analysed in relation to the structural ch aracteristics of the two schemes. In our discussion we propose a gener al framework to explain the co-ordination problems met by farmers in t his context including lack of experience, diversity of individual beha viour and uncertainty. Some suggestions are put forward to improve and accelerate the organizational learning processes already acquired by farmers, in terms of technical references, scheme design and modelling . (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.