Cités horticoles en sursis ? L'agriculture urbaine dans les grandes Niayes au Sénégal

The production crisis in rural agricultural systems is stimulating urban agriculture and particularly, horticulture and livestock. These two sectors together absorb a fraction of the rural migrants, lead to the creation of cash activities, and bring in profits thanks to the farmers’ proximity to urban markets.

This study examines the case of Senegal’s Niayes Zone, a narrow coastal stretch between Dakar and Saint-Louis that has supplied the bulk of Senegal’s horticultural products for several decades. A multidisciplinary team of researchers and technicians conducted an in-depth study of the production systems, land tenure problems, interactions between horticulture and cattle rearing, environmental disruptions, and strategies used by the different stakeholders.

The research sheds light over the fragility of peri-urban agriculture. Its authors show how it is competing against a fast-developing housing sector that is taking over more arable land every day thus causing severe environmental damage and undermining current production systems.

The editors

Safiétou Touré Fall is a veterinarian, a zootechnician and a nutritionist working at the Institut sénégalais de recherche agricole.

Abdou Salam Fall is a sociologist and an anthropologist at the Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire, Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar.