Senegal Move For Eco-Farming Increases Food Quality and Helps Families

Senegal’s agriculture minister has announced that, to protect its food supply from climate change impacts, the nation is planning a switch to chemical-free eco-farming.

Rising droughts and temperatures are affecting crop production in Senegal, where around half of the population of 16 million live in rural areas and are mostly dependent on food farming.

Experts highlight that though the country is a regional leader on agroecology – the use of natural methods, such as organic fertilizers and tree planting, to address land degradation – public subsidies have led to the heavy use of chemical fertilizers that have degraded the soil.

“The goal is to improve family farming to increase the food supply, raise incomes and become more resilient to climate change,” says the agriculture minister, Moussa Balde.

“We can’t destroy our fields by farming, ” he adds to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Sustainable agriculture … is the president’s vision.