Typology for action of the cotton farms in Cote d'Ivoire[Typologie pour l'action des exploitations des zones cotonnières de Côte d'Ivoire]

In the cotton-growing areas of West and Central Africa, the support given to farms in the framework of national actions or bilateral/multilateral cooperation is not based on a typology of farms to help identify what to do and measure what has been achieved. Such a situation may result from the lack of a typology or, more frequently, the lack of actual and regular application of a typology. This article proposes an approach of typology for action in Côte d'Ivoire, the distribution of farm types helps to identify relevant actions to implement and assess their impacts later on. It is based on the identification of a simple quantitative criterion and the measurement of the levels of various technical and socio-economic indicators that are correlated with the chosen criterion. Through the analysis of a survey carried out in 2014, a typology was established on the sole criterion of cattle ownership, consistently with the tradition of hoarding in the areas concerned. Because of the correlations between the typology criterion and other criteria, the four types of farms differentiated by cattle possession were also clearly different in terms of technical and financial performance in cotton cultivation, characteristics of the farmers (age, family and farm sizes, production equipment), and their possession of durable goods. The proposed typology is adapted to local context, simple to apply, flexible in its evolution and may be useful for the definition of policy in the cotton areas of Côte d'Ivoire. In its long-term application, however, it would require updating the relationships of the various technical and socio-economic indicators with the criterion of cattle ownership. The common tradition of cattle hoarding makes it possible to consider that the typology proposed may be adapted to other cotton-producing countries in West and Central Africa.