WILL PROMOTION OF COARSE-GRAIN PROCESSING TURN THE TIDE FOR TRADITIONAL CEREALS IN THE SAHEL - RECENT EMPIRICAL-EVIDENCE FROM MALI

The paper examines the determinants of household purchases of already- processed millet, sorghum, and maize in urban Mall, The results show t hat these purchases (as well as those of rice) rise with the opportuni ty cost of women's time as well as with household income, The results for the two most important coarse grains in the Sahel (millet and sorg hum) differ widely, however; while raw millet and processed millet are similarly affected by income and women's opportunity cost of time, th e results for raw sorghum are the opposite of those for processed sorg hum,Whereas improving sorghum processing will increase total sorghum d emand as urban incomes rise, the same cannot be said for millet, Three sets of subsector policies would increase demand for processed coarse grains: (1) promoting access to and use of abrasive-disk dehullers at the semi-wholesale level; (2) promoting improvements in the quality a nd cleanliness of the grain available to dehullers, and instituting gr ading by grain quality in the marketing system; (3) increasing consume r information about possible savings realized on purchases of dehulled cereals, via for example, the Malian Market Information System (SIM). (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.