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 Printable version |
Adapting (armer strategies to climatic risks and demographic pressure in the Senegalese Sahelo-Sudanian region |
Cahiers Agricultures. Volume 5, Number 2, 99-108, Mars-Avril 1996, Étude originale
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 Résumé
Article gratuit
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Author(s) : Marc Piraux, André Buldgen, France Drugmant, Moussa Fall, Roger Compère |
Summary : An in-depth study was carried out in two villages, Thiandène and Ndioulbeth (figure 1), in the Senegalese groundnut basin. Repeated periods of drought, reduction and degradation of fallow areas (figures 2 &\; 3), decreasing and ageing woodlands and poor soil fertility all contribute to the creation of an increasingly unstable environment. The villages present very different demographic and morpho-pedological characteristics, being more favourable in Thiandène. Both factors have a strong influence on the environment and on the rate the population’s needs are met. Ecological characteristics also provide evidence of a higher degree of degradation in the village of Ndioulbeth. The study enabled several adaptive factors to be identified: traditional social structures change and behaviour becomes more individualistic\; activities are diversified through commerce, raising live-stock and, when no new arable land is available, by intensifying farming Systems. The deciding factors that ensure the household’s needs are provided and the farming System develops and adapts under the circumstances were identified. They are based on intensifying the production means, but above all on increasingly integrating income-producing livestock farming, thus ensuring better management of soil fertility. Success in setting up such a System, however, often depends on the farmer’s social status and financial position, which may be inherent or acquired through outside activities. Those unable to move forwards in this way face financial difficultes or chronic debt. The type of intensification strategies is the same whatever the scale of observation (region, village or unit of residence). The study showed that all these adaptive factors were always greater in the village where land and soil constraints were higher. The development of stockrearing activities is clearly essential for bringing new economic life into the region. Evidence of the farmer strategy appeared after a farm typology was carried out. It was based on one specific variable: "millet self-sufficiency". In the typology, farms were objectively classified according to the availability of production factors (land, capital and labour: table 3). The situation of each farm was thus made clear. The method used, based on a diagnosis carried out on several levels, provides a mode/ for studying farmer innovations. It also allows external interventions to comply with the region’s potential and its diversity. |
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