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The tar sands and brutal temperatures of the Sahara can stretch over more than half of Mali's surface, yet these hostile desert conditions don't slow the country down when it comes to agricultural production.

In a country where even the slightest fluctuations in climate could lead to serious food insecurity, mastering the art of farming under difficult conditions remains essential.

Malians are now farming more intelligently and adopting new technologies to boost yields and incomes.

With the help of the Programme de Productivité Agricole en Afrique de l'Ouest (PPAAO), over 175,000 Malian farmers have been able to revitalize their productivity by planting higher-yielding rice varieties and more disease-resistant tomatoes, using an adapted grain drill to save seed, and producing silo maize for livestock feed, which increases milk production.

With the support of the project, Mali is strengthening its seed systems as well as its research and technology transfer systems to provide comprehensive support for the implementation of the National Agricultural Investment Program (PNIA) and to increase the resilience of farming and herding communities.

"The completion report for the first phase of the WAPP revealed that these farmers were able to improve their productivity by an average of 30% and their incomes by 34%. The period between 2 harvests has also been reduced, a result which is already having a significant impact," explains Abdoulaye Touré, Senior Agricultural Economist at the World Bank and team leader of the WAPP.

The regional integration aspect of the program, which is one of its main strengths, also enables Mali to benefit from innovative technologies and techniques developed in other WAPP beneficiary countries. The introduction of new, more resilient tomato varieties is one such innovative technique.

"Drought-resistant varieties have enabled us to maintain our production yields during the rainy season, when tomatoes are scarce," says Ibrahima Diakité, Chairman of the Regional Commission of Users of Agricultural Research Results in Mali.