L'image de l'agriculture baule (Côte-d'Ivoire) et les développeurs : «réfèrent» précolonial et réalités historiques

The preponderance of yam in the subsistence production of present-day Baoulé and the valorization of this crop within the representation system of the peasants characterize the agriculture of this region of the Ivory Coast. These aspects determine the image of the precolonial agriculture held by «development» executives as well as «social scientists». The object of this article is to show why this image doesn't correspond to historical realities. The reconstitution from oral traditions and early colonial archives shows a very diversified agriculture which can only be understood in the context of a complex valorization system of all productions where the agricultural element is only a part (gold production and handicraft, especially of cotton ; national and intercontinental trade). Colonization upset old conditions of valorization and introduced foreign constraints thus inducing a regression of the productive assets and inside the purely agricultural sphere discouraged the crops which were the most subject to direct intervention (rice, corn, cotton). Yam had the advantage of a more liberal policy because it didn't fit in with the colonial «model» of a strategic products. The distorsion of precolonial realities into a stereotyped «precolonial referent» can be explained by a need for justification on the part of the colonizers. At the same time, the Baoulé producers modified their own representations to the advantage of the already culturally valorized yam. Consequently, most so-called «socio- cultural obstacles» date back to 1 900-1*91 8 for the crops most touched by the central government action when a plantation economy was outlined (ground-nuts) which developped outside the rules laid down by the colonizers. Contemporary researchers generally working oh an «ethnographical present» had little chance to escape this caricatured image of precolonial Baoulé agriculture.