Questionnaire/Interviews

We created a fairly extensive questionnaire to be used in the interviews with our Nder partners.  The questionnaire covered a broad range of topics, but the underlying question was, what are the challenges that Nder farmers face?  

We conducted interviews with each of the six partners.

For the purposes of this modified report, I have copied some of the more interesting quotes from our six interviews:

On Land:
Each family is granted land by the Comité Rurale in Ross-Bethio.  A family asks for a certain amount of land and must then pay 500 F CFA/hectare for rights to use the land.  Up to the present, farmers do not have title deeds for the land they farm.  But the government is working on a Nouvelle Loi d’Orientation that would give each farmer a title deed to the land, which could be used to get credit from the bank.  At present, farmers don’t have the right to sell, rent, or use the land for equity.  With the new law, they would be able to do this.

On Seasonality of Crops:
We used to practice rain agriculture, which made cultivation much more seasonal.  But the change to irrigated agriculture allows us to farm 12 months/year.
For 9 months (Sept.-June) we farm sweet potatoes and manioc.  The other 3 months of the year we farm onions, peanuts, cabbage, tomatoes, okra, eggplants, melons, etc.

On Distribution and Marketing:
About 1% of all the produce goes to families in the village, 99% is sold.  The banabana (trader/middleman) come to the fields and buy the produce.  They order in advance how much they want.  This depends on the national market and how often they come.  The price is determined by the market.  We make cultivation decisions according to market demand.

The village is not food self-sufficient.  We buy food at weekly markets.

On Problems/challenges with Agriculture in Nder:
We have many problems.  Since we began with irrigated agriculture and sweet potatoes (15 years ago), we’ve had no government support.  We have no protection from natural challenges like droughts, plagues, etc.  And we receive no subsidies for products that are too expensive.

Financially, all the profit we make each year must be reinvested into inputs for the following season, so we are not making much money.
We have land problems.  We don’t do crop rotations because there are microbes in the soil which attack the roots.  Every year, we must move to new fields and let others lay fallow until they dry out.  Also, pesticides and fertilizers stay in the soil because we don’t have good drainage systems, which salinates the soil.

The Senegalese Sugar Company set up a plant nearby to grow sugar and they began draining their chemicals into the lake.  Animals that drank from the lake began to die and we noticed more water-borne diseases, skin problems, and parasites that enter through the skin.  But now the company is redirecting their waste to the river, so our water here is a bit better now.

On Debt:
We borrow from each other, among farmers of the village.  At the end of the season we pay each other back.  So now farmers are not in debt to any outside entity.

On Money and survival:
80-90% of local economy is in agriculture, including agricultural commerce (banabana).  Other 10% comes from fishing, arts, trade, etc.  Many farmers are also fishermen, livestock raisers.

In each family, 80% of the revenue comes from the fields.  But this is not enough to live on, so we must do other things to bring in money.

We buy food from Rosso Senegal.  After each harvest, we keep some money for living on until the next season.  After harvest, many families buy some animals as a sort of investment bank.  Then when they need money, they sell the animals back.  If someone in the village doesn’t have enough food, they are helped by the rest of the village.

On Changes in Agriculture:
In the past, when we farmed along the lake, the land was shared and everyone did everything together.  We, the women, had our own fields to manage.  Sometimes we would help our husbands.  But when we changed to irrigated agriculture and had to be allocated land by the rural council, this changed.  The rural council only gives land to men.  So now all the work women do is for their husbands, on their husband’s fields.  The husbands manage and make decisions and women work as employees for their husbands.

Now that women aren’t farming, they are doing other activities like banabana (trader/middleman), making incense, etc. to supplement the family income.
In the past, families had more income.  It was better.
    
On Organic Agriculture:
I am interested in organic agriculture because it is healthier, it’s easier to do than conventional agriculture, and if you grow products organically, they keep for longer.  You can save the products until you find someone to buy them.