Senegal’s Quest to Balance Food Security Against Biofuels
The expansion of biofuels production in Senegal highlights the risks of an excessive focus on fuel crop production against the tremendous need to strengthen food security and rural livelihoods through a process that fully engages local farmers. The recent slowdown in global markets – including those for biofuels – provides some breathing room to reconcile those competing demands.
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The agricultural sector in Senegal confronts a series of inter-connected dilemmas. Expectations and needs are high, as some 70 percent of the population works in agriculture. Productivity and public investment in agriculture, on the other hand are low. The country imports some 60 percent of its food products.
The drive to increase biofuels production last year, created new challenges for decision making on land use issues. Encouraged by the prospects to develop local energy supplies and to take advantage of new export opportunities, the government began the Jatropha National Production Program in 2007. Among the goals of that program was a target to increase the land used for jatropha production for biodiesel by 321,000 hectares by 2012.
Numerous local agricultural, forestry and rural development services consulted by ActionAid reported considerable pressure to allocate land for biofuels production, in some cases with very little knowledge of the real impacts on communities. Some local authorities had been advised that investors had requested approval to use as much as 100,000 hectares for biofuels production.
Fatou Sarr is the president of the federation of women transforming fish in the Saloum islands.
Copyright © Candace Feit/ActionAid
In the Tambacounda region, for example, land allocations are taking place within the GOANA Program, an initiative launched by President Wade in April 2008. While the program is intended to ensure national food security, nearly 70 percent of the land involved in Tambacounda is designated for jatropha production. Some 23,500 hectares have been allocated for jatropha, compared to 7,200 hectares for agricultural production.
ActionAid carried out participatory workshops in 22 communities across the country. Farmers and community leaders discussed the possible opportunities and challenges involved in this new production. Farmers are divided on the wisdom of expanding energy crop production. They all agree, however, that achieving food security must be the primary goal of any program for the agricultural sector. The leaders of the milk producers’ organizations were concerned that this initiative could displace small-scale farmers from their lands in favor of agribusinesses. They also questioned why land was being designated for energy crops when food security is a pressing national issue.
“I clearly refused all of the initial propositions that I received for starting to grow jatropha because I do not want us to become farm workers at the mercy of a few companies,” said Adbou Tall, a member of the federation of producers. “I prefer to continue to increase my production of rice and corn. Imagine what would happen if the world demand falls and the price of biofuels collapses, after we have concentrated all our efforts on it. Our situation would be even worse than now and there would be famine. We can’t eat jatropha, but we can eat rice.”
On the other hand, the National Structure for Rural People’s Consultation and Cooperation expressed optimism that small-scale jatropha farms could benefit local farmers if that production was one part of overall agricultural production. That would require technical assistance, as well as investments in small-scale processing facilities to ensure that much of the value added from such production remains in local communities.
ActionAid is working with local family-farms, as well as with environment and development organizations to press the government to develop a national plan that balances these needs while prioritizing sustainable development. We are coordinating those efforts with similar programs in Ghana, Mozambique, Guatemala, Brazil, the United States and Europe. Now is the time to get those policies right – to lower U.S. and European targets, invest in a balance of crops to support food and energy needs, and advance rural livelihoods and food security.
