Among the heavy files that President Macky Sall will leave to his successor, there will be, in a very good place, the problem of agriculture. A wise leader might even put this issue at the forefront of all his priorities, if we see how the food problems have shaken the best laid plans of President Macky Sall. Like Abdoulaye Wade before him, the Head of State very early wanted to make food self-sufficiency one of the pillars of his development policy. As soon as he came to power in 2012, Macky Sall set himself the goal of putting an end to the importation of rice, because the country should be able to produce what it consumes.

In 2014, he launched the National Rice Self-Sufficiency Program (Pnar). To lead this policy, he put in Agriculture one of the greatest, if not the greatest world specialist in the question of rice, Dr Papa Abdoulaye Seck. The latter said that the country would produce, in 2017, at least 1.6 million tons of paddy rice. enough to satisfy national demand. For good measure, and not to make people believe that Minister Seck’s vision stopped at the rice fields, the government launched the agricultural component of the Emerging Senegal Plan (Pse), namely the Pracas or Acceleration Program of farming.

In this context, from 2014, Senegal was to produce 1 million tons of peanuts, achieve self-sufficiency in onions and potatoes, among other things, increase the production of horticultural products such as mangoes or cashews.

The means have not been lacking to achieve these objectives. From the outset, the Minister of Agriculture, under the leadership of the Head of State, has undertaken at a rapid pace to renew the agricultural equipment of all producers. Access to inputs has, theoretically, been facilitated, as well as credit conditions, even for the most indebted producers. Thus, the State could boast of injecting each year, until 2017, at least 60 billion CFA francs in the rural world, through the Agricultural Bank (Lba, former Cncas) and decentralized financial institutions. After this period, a minimum of 70 billion have been counted as paid into agriculture, through various programs. Today, for the last budget of 2024, it is at least 100 billion Cfa that the State has programmed. A real record.

Nevertheless, specialists put a damper on these statements, because they have doubts about the use of these resources and the reliability of the figures advanced. Some indicate that, already well before Papa Abdoulaye Seck and after the latter, all the Ministers of Agriculture always wanted to make us take bladders for lanterns. With regard to the production data for rice and groundnuts, for example, the authorities have never accepted that the official figures are called into question. Thus, in 2018, while the country officially declared to have produced 1 million 206 thousand 587 tons of rice, imports did not decrease, however, even increasing. Today, exports have reached nearly 2 million tonnes, according to Ansd. Moreover, it is still not easy to find local rice in the big cities of Senegal. The onion situation would also make housewives cry. If the production is declared sufficient with more than 400 thousand tons, it does not cover the national consumption, because of the problems related to the conservation.

As for groundnut, it is supposed to have reached 1 million 500 thousand 588 tons in 2018, with more than 250 thousand tons exported, mainly through Chinese traders. However, local oil processing units have been unable, for many years, to obtain sufficient quantities to run their machines. So much so that Sonacos had, during the last marketing campaign, to give up recruiting several day laborers who only counted on its factories to be able to “ensure their welding”.

In fact, the agricultural sector lost shares even in speculations where it was strongest. The inter-professional tomato sector has been de-structured due to uncontrolled liberalisation, which has meant that instead of an industrial operator which guaranteed stable incomes for tomato producers in the river valley, we now have three “processors” who, despite their promises to improve the sector, can no longer guarantee us tomato self-sufficiency, and leave us, as in all other areas, at the mercy of imports, mainly Chinese.

For a long time, agricultural researchers have been trying to convince political authorities to follow the process to achieve agricultural self-sufficiency. One of the biggest problems in this country has unfortunately always been to subordinate scientific expertise to political will. Wade and Macky Sall decided that they were going to succeed in the bet of food self-sufficiency in the very short term, by giving land and money to speculators. Their collaborators never wanted or dared to indicate to them the need to respect the stages and the need to put the resources of the country where they could be really useful. The food crises of 2008, as well as those born of the Covid-19 epidemic or the Russian-Ukrainian war, did not make it possible to really change the paradigm. We must hope that the leader who will come in April 2024 understands that Macky has already built the production tracks. He will have to set himself the task of ensuring that agricultural products from the rural world follow these tracks.

By Mohamed GUEYE / mgueye@lequotidien.sn

  • Translation by Ndey T. SOSSEH / Serigne S. DIAGNE