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Chapter 5 Sustainable agricultural intensification 147
Abdoulaye Badji, age 50, also lives in
Casamance. His livelihood is agriculture:
“That’s what I rely on to sustain myself and
feed my family.” He provides for his own two
children and the children of two of his
brothers, who work abroad.
Abdoulaye grows rice, groundnuts, maize,
sorghum, beans and various types of fruit.
Diversification is a key strategy for managing
risk. “You cannot grow just one crop,” he
explains. “If it doesn’t work, you will be in
an impossible situation for that year.”
As a member of a local agricultural association,
Abdoulaye has been able to access better
equipment and seeds. He also appreciates
“the solidarity aspect of these types of
associations,” for example in providing
support to members in times of sickness.
Abdoulaye says he would never drop
agriculture because “you would have to buy
what other people have cultivated to eat.”
Most local farmers lack adequate equipment,
according to Abdoulaye: “There are not
enough ploughs [and cattle] to go around…
Throughout these difficult years people
have sold all to sustain their families.”
He believes: “the real way forward” is to
have mechanized equipment: “You cannot
meet the challenge of development if you
stick to traditional ways.”
However, he maintains his father’s
generation used to get more out of the land
than people do now. He explains, “People
don’t practise fallowing land anymore,
because due to insecurity [as a result of
conflict] you keep using the same land,
which is safe. Well, that land cannot take it
anymore. Secondly, we used cattle dung
[before] to fertilize the soil. Today we don’t
have cattle.” Farmers’ problems are also
intensified by water shortages.
Abdoulaye has adapted his farming to
respond to these changes: “I have decided
to produce only short-cycle crops to adapt
to the reduced rainy season: beans, maize,
millet.” He says the whole community is
adapting: “They know that if they carry on
with old ways, rain will stop before the
crops mature and it is a disaster.” He has
also started fallowing his land.
To make farming viable in the long term, he
says people need better equipment and
seeds, a system of retaining water and
marketing support.