Document(s) 13 of 13

The effect of the agriculture crisis on the deterioration of the rural population’s living conditions calls into question the wisdom of agriculture policies. In addition, the consequences of food insecurity are acutely felt in urban settings, as the main source of the food supply is rural areas.

Thus, urban agriculture is one way to solve the problem of improving food security in cities, given the weak performance of rural production systems. Very diversified, it remains one of the ways to absorb rural migration and its production performance supports its practice in the hierarchy of socio-economic activities in cities (Tinker, 1998).

The agriculture program in Senegal, which aims at increasing agriculture production to improve food security, has placed much reliance on horticulture and livestock keeping. These expanding sectors are experiencing positive growth, contrary to other agricultural methods that are having difficulty jumpstarting the primary industry.

The Niayes zone accounts for almost 80% of horticultural production. Livestock keeping is also a factor in the sub-urban and urban systems, but only accounts for 1% of cattle and 3% of small ruminants. However, industrial aviculture is very prevalent in this zone. Nevertheless, livestock keeping in the Niayes zone is undergoing modernization, aviculture is on the rise and dairy farms, often associated with horticulture, are being introduced.

Although during the last decade agriculture programs have often been limited by an unfavourable macro-economic infrastructure and poor climate conditions, one of the main factors in the poor performance was archaic production systems. An insufficient number of new agricultural techniques are being used, while the rate of new technology generated by research has been inadequate (AFID-USAID, 1993).

In Senegal, the crisis in the primary industry, the main provider of the population’s food supply, is one of the principal causes of increased poverty. Yet, while poverty is mainly centred in rural areas, the urban population, mainly supplied by rural agriculture, is also suffering from chronic food shortages. For several decades, the decline in rural agriculture and food shortages have encouraged the development of urban and sub-urban agriculture, with an emphasis on horticulture and livestock keeping. Urban agriculture’s contribution to supplying cities has not yet been assessed, but it already plays a major role in other African cities, reaching almost 70% in East Africa (Maxwell, 1995), and is often practised by more than 30% of the urban population (Mougeot, 1995). It is therefore a key element in food security for growing cities, and it regulates endemic unemployment aggravated by rural migration.

The biological diversity and plurality of the Niayes production system have already been described (Bâ Diao, 1991; Fall et al., 1993). This biological diversity is not being put to use to improve the performance of the production system. Practitioners do not become sufficiently involved in agricultural and pastoral activities. Few producers place equal importance on livestock in comparison to horticulture. The potential of recycling horticultural nutrients for livestock justifies the development of new technologies in this field.

The rural population that migrated to the Niayes has retained its agrarian habits and is the most likely to cultivate land, often reduced in size. However, African cities are potentially high consumers. Dakar, Thiès, Louga and Saint-Louis are the main rural and urban marketing centres. The existence of large urban centres also explains the high purchasing power of the population, which stimulates urban agriculture.

However, these agricultural activities do have consequences on an urban environment marked by overcrowding and by competition for space between agriculture and urbanization. At the heart of this problem is the question of space and urban waste management in an effort to improve living conditions in urban areas.

Therefore, integrating sub-urban agricultural activities seems to be an answer to poverty, a compromise between the goals of improving food supplies and protecting the urban environment.

The space designated for urban and sub-urban agriculture has declined in contrast to the expansion and increased importance of these activities in the food security of cities. Thus, there is an urgent need to rationalize the horticulture-livestock system in sub-urban areas by developing it within an infrastructure that could improve performances in both technical and economic terms. It would then be possible to take into consideration intense social changes while improving living conditions and respecting the environment.

The goal is to improve the capacity of urban agriculture to satisfy the population’s food requirements by increasing its productivity. Land constraints require intense production. The use of strong chemicals seems to be unstoppable. However, the risk of damage to the environment demands new solutions such as recycling nutrients in a mixed system, combining horticulture, livestock and fishing. It will be important, therefore, to develop biological techniques that integrate horticulture and livestock keeping. This system, which requires few chemicals as it is based on waste recycling, will improve production while at the same time protecting the environment.

This vision for urban agriculture development is not widespread in Senegal. A minority of “organic” farmers are trying to promote cropping practices that use few chemicals. They are looking to grow stronger, but are confronted with a lack of technological training and insufficient information and technology in the field.

The horticulture/livestock keeping program tries to contribute to the development of a system that is limited by space, demographics and insufficient technology.

Document(s) 13 of 13