Visiting Fiara this week, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko promised to “take up the challenge of food self-sufficiency”. It’s a powerful statement, and one that all Senegalese cannot praise, especially as it is in line with the will expressed by the leaders who preceded this regime, notably presidents Abdoulaye Wade and Macky Sall. These leaders were confronted with food crisis situations which quickly made them realize that the country could not hope to develop by basing its diet on harvests from foreign countries.

This is how, in 2008, following a severe global food crisis that reduced food exports, President Abdoulaye Wade launched the Great Agricultural Offensive for Food and Nutrition (Goana). He released a budget of over 60 billion CFA francs for this purpose, while encouraging all Senegalese who felt they had the capacity to do so, to take up farming. Facilities were granted to potential agricultural entrepreneurs, in terms of access to land, irrigation, and even to acquire seeds, fertilizers and water. With all this, President Wade expected Senegal to achieve a considerable leap in its main agricultural speculations. 16 years on, it’s clear to everyone that the country has failed to achieve self-sufficiency in any of the speculations targeted by Lawyer Wade’s government. Is this no doubt why Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, with his fine eye for detail, has avoided focusing on any particular production, and has confined himself to talking about food self-sufficiency in general terms? 

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The trouble is, if you try to cast a wide net, you run the risk of not succeeding in any area. Especially since there’s no sector of agriculture where you’re likely to win more quickly. Remember President Macky Sall’s efforts to achieve rice self-sufficiency by 2017 at the latest. Until he left office, the outgoing head of state was unable to savour this satisfaction. He and his various Ministers of Agriculture gargled over boosted production figures, which took no account of the realities emerging from the production fields. We’ve already pointed out that even in sectors where Senegal has made progress, such as tomato production and processing, clumsy political decisions have led to a major setback. As a result, the Made in Senegal tomato is now a fine fiction, which can no longer fooling anyone, as can be seen from the distressed state of the farmers of the Inter-professionals of Tomato in the River Valley.

These examples underline the fact that food self-sufficiency should not stop at inflating the agricultural budget without involving the other elements. The first and most important of these is land. Specialists say that Senegal has over 3 million 800,000 hectares of arable land, of which nearly 2 million 500,000 hectares are developed. Of this sown land, 17% is entrusted to foreign operators, mainly in agribusiness.

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The weakness of agriculture in Senegal is due, among other things, to land speculation, a phenomenon that became more widespread from 2008 onwards, when President Wade’s Goana made it easier to acquire “land for anyone who wanted to cultivate it”, as the former head of state put it. Most of this land has gone to property developers. A situation facilitated by the difficulty of accessing financing for agriculture. In the Senegal River valley or in the Anambé region, The Agricultural Bank (Lba) agents have plenty of anecdotes about their run-ins with rice growers or, to a lesser extent, onion producers, when it comes to collecting debts. For years, the state had to get involved and decide to pass the sponge for debts that became too heavy for the farmer.

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There will be no end to this phenomenon until farmer support structures such as Saed, Ancar, Sodagri and the Drdr become more dynamic in their role of providing technical support to farmers at grassroots level. At a time when cooperatives and inter-professional organizations have all but disappeared, farmers are left to face their bankers alone. Often, unable to meet his debts, the farmer is discouraged and does not seek to increase his harvests.

In other words, the policy of food self-sufficiency will not be achieved by a “bet” at Lonase or 1XBet. On the contrary, it will be a dynamic process involving many players, starting with farmers and government departments, and ending with consumers. The process will also include support services, researchers, agronomists, botanists, geographers, planners, soil scientists, intermediaries, private seed producers, processing industries and others. The Prime Minister was wise enough not to set himself a public deadline for achieving his goal, which is a good thing. He will also do well not to want to wipe the slate clean. Macky Sall has increased the agricultural budget to 120 billion CFA francs, a first in this country. Even if the expected results have not yet been achieved, this does not mean that the path chosen was necessarily the wrong one.
By Mohamed GUEYE / mgueye@lequotidien.sn

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