Crédit de trésorerie et endettement des producteurs de coton : un cas au Centre-Bénin

While the requirement for cash has been increasing along the need to pay labor external to family, the provision of cash credit is little taken into account in the management of cotton sectors in French speaking African countries. Our study is the first to address the conditions and impacts of the informal provision of cash credit to cotton producers in that region. The study is based on the appraisal of a particular policy implemented in Benin, in 2012, to formally provide cash credit to cotton producers. It is focused on the center of Benin where the execution of the policy has attracted informal operators to join in, hence revealing the conditions on how they operated. The study has benefitted from cotton producers to have access to the data contained in the credit books of their groups. Among 537 cotton producers involved in 15 cooperatives, very few farmers have escape d from the intervention of informal players operating at an interest rate that could exceed 200% per year. The amount to reimburse cash credit could reach if not exceed that for input credit, hence swallowing the monetary margin from cotton growing. The observed conditions of the cash credit by informal operators were capturing farmers into a trap of debt and poverty, to the benefit of hidden players and ignored by the cotton sector organization. In a context of reduced availability of family labor and exacerbated monetization, the lack or the inaccuracy of formal provision of cash credit to cotton producers could mainly lead to pass the benefit of cotton cultivation to players of informal and usury credit. The recourse to cash credit by cotton producers should be further analyzed and integrated into the organization and management of cotton sectors in African countries.