link to Mali Food Aid Project
All but the last photo were taken on Tuesday, November 8 by our colleagues Peter and Sandy Jorgensen, on their drive from their house to a nearby village, not even 20 miles away.
This is the time when the yearly harvest is usually in after the short rainy season of a few months.
Dried out Peanut fields (usual source of protein, to make soap for washing clothes, people and dishes, and the leaves are feed for animals)
Peanut fields next to millet/sorghum fields. The sun has burned many peanut plants, but these are better than many peanut fields this year. The sorghum fields are short and the stalks never produced grain. Normally, healthy millet ready to harvest is drooping over with lots of grain at this time of year.
This is the grass along the side of the road. Usually it should be about six feet high, but you can tell it isn’t. The animals (cows, sheep, goats, donkeys and horses) will not have enough to eat. People don’t have money to feed animals; animals just graze. The first three animals listed are for food (and milk in rainy season), and the others are beasts of burden and used to plow fields, etc.
Millet field. Millet is the staple crop grown in the area. Corn is also grown, but it only lasts for a few months, whereas millet is the grain used for two to three of the daily meals. Millet is similar to the small, round birdseed you may see, though there are many varieties grown here. These are the more drought-resistant varieties.
This is a photo taken a few years ago of a millet field in the same area that is healthier. The stalks are tall. A few of the heads of millet are filling in with lots of grain and starting to droop over. This is what the fields should look like after a normal rainy season.
Link to Mali Food Aid Project page