Rice Self-Sufficiency and Agroecology in Senegal

The people of Senegal consume almost twice as much rice per capita as the world average, yet the nation generally imports up to 70% of the rice it consumes. Over the decades since independence, the nation’s reliance on imported rice has grown steadily, despite successive government efforts to increase domestic rice production through the distribution of industrial agricultural inputs. In the last decade, concerned about the social and ecological impacts of input-intensive agriculture, a national coalition of civil society actors has formed to promote ecologically intensive production methods and the development of local markets for agroecological products. This movement has recently begun to exert influence over state programs pursuing national rice self-sufficiency. Yet, new initiatives have been cautious and consist of the incorporation of ‘green’ objectives into programs otherwise oriented towards attaining higher yields through expanded industrialization. At the same time, agroecological systems of rice production that were once well-established, such as those found throughout the southern Casamance region, must increasingly contend with government schemes that incentivize reliance on synthetic inputs and agricultural machinery.

My paper examines how these contradictory approaches influence the ongoing development of territorial rice markets in two regions – the middle valley of Senegal River and the Anambé Basin of the eastern Casamance. In doing so, it argues that the piecemeal nature of government involvement in the agroecological transition has contributed to the steady erosion of historically agroecological systems of rice production and the relative isolation of farmers attempting to foster agroecology in collaboration with civil society organizations. This work highlights the challenges confronted by those working to encourage the emergence of localized, agroecological markets when these operate within a sector that has become dependent on international aid and industrial production methods.