Published on : 30/07/2022 – 16:41
24 hours before the legislative elections in Senegal, attention is focused on the big cities with significant electoral weight, like Dakar, Thiès or Mbacké. In the provinces, far from the hustle and bustle of the caravans and meetings of the big political coalitions, the priorities are elsewhere. Agricultural crisis, inflation, climate change… Rural people are counting on the next legislature to improve their living conditions.
Under a cloudy sky, Mamour Sarr cultivates his cowpea field alone [plante voisine du haricot, NDLR] in Faylar, a village located 120 km east of Dakar, in the Senegal. The 40-year-old farmer is anxious. Despite the efforts made on his one-hectare plot, he has no assurance that his plants will grow. “I had sown following the first rains in June. I had to start from scratch because between the beginning of June and mid-July, not a drop of water fell from the sky. I threw away my last hopes on new seeds and fertilizers following the rains have resumed in recent days, hoping that the rainy season will set in and that the harvests will be good”, he confides.
Due to erratic rainfall, harvests of Senegal’s main food and cash crops declined in 2021. Groundnuts, for example, fell from a national production of 1.8 million tonnes in 2020 to 1.6 million in 2021, according to figures from the Ministry of Agriculture.
Mamour fears the same scenario for this year. “Look, the level of the plants is not the same from one field to another”, he says, showing the contrasts created by the irregularity of the rains. “It is true that farmers here do not find out too much regarding the weather forecast before sowing, which may explain why we have no control over anything. It is the public authorities who must help to modernize agriculture, to better control water, to have fertilizers of sufficient quality and quantity”. Mamour hopes that the future National Assembly will bring concrete solutions to the peasants.
>> To read: Senegal: youth, the other issue of the legislative elections
Food insecurity
In Senegal, the rural population is in the majority at 53%, once morest 47% of city dwellers according to the National Agency for Statistics and Demography. Many peasants, however, have the feeling of being neglected.
For the farmers interviewed by France 24, the insufficient harvests for the 2021 campaign had significant repercussions on the price of cereals and local agricultural production. At the Sandiara market, a hundred kilometers from the capital, prices have doubled. “The kilogram of groundnuts which cost 500 CFA francs a year ago has risen to 1,200 CFA francs [0,76 euro, NDLR]. Cowpea is sold at 1,200 CFA francs per kilo when it only cost 400 CFA francs. The kilogram of millet has increased by 100 CFA francs”, lists Demba Diop, retail trader, in a grocery store on the side of national road 1.
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“As a trader, I sell at a loss. I try to help people as much as possible so that they can get by in this inflationary environment,” adds Demba, who is not very interested in the legislative and will not vote on Sunday.
It is the complete opposite of Alioune, a “seven-seater” taxi driver, these Peugeot 505s from the 1990s which still provide part of the interregional transport in Senegal. “I’ll vote, that’s for sure, but I won’t tell you for whom,” he jokes. “Rural areas are completely forgotten by the state. Listening to the media and the projects put in place by the government, it seems that the country is limited to Dakar. We are the left behind”, adds Alioune .
Parked on the side of the road at the exit of Sandiara, the man in his fifties who lives in a village located in the Kaffrine region, 150 kilometers away, is also a farmer. He assures that he will no longer get by economically. “Everything has become excessively expensive. Ten or twenty years ago, our grain reserves allowed us to live practically a whole year. Now, we can’t even hold out for two months following the rainy season,” he fumes.
The situation seems more complicated for Woury Diouf. This woman in her sixties picks sorrel on the outskirts of her family field, to prepare “koutia”, an aromatic sauce accompanied by okra, ideal for théboudieune, rice with fish, a national dish in Senegal. . “This théboudieune for lunch will also serve us for dinner tonight,” she says with a wry smile. “We can no longer prepare couscous every night as before because of the high cost of millet,” she adds.
Inflation in the price of peanut seeds, used for seeds, has forced several families in the vicinity of Sandiara not to sow this year, informs Woury. The seeds are sold at 1,500 CFA francs per kilogram. A price considered excessive by many farmers.
“If I have one thing to say to these deputies who will be elected on Sunday, it is to help us lower the cost of living. This is my only request”, adds Woury, who confesses not to follow the news Politics.
The electoral campaign which ended on Friday was mainly punctuated by diatribes between rival candidates, denounces for his part Sitor, a young man aged 24, who lives near Ngoultoune regarding ten kilometers from Sandiara. “I follow political news every day and the various speeches on the electoral campaign. I have not seen a single proposal to relieve the rural world, no solution to modernize agriculture to help us increase yields.”