Field
- 64 agroecological initiatives visited
- 20 in-depth case studies
- 40 SAAT questionnaires
- Semi-structured interviews
- Multi-stakeholder workshops and forum theatre
- Participatory mapping
Mbour, Petite-Côte · February 2026
Territorial diagnostic
Agroecology-based territorialised food systems in the Mbour department. 64 initiatives visited, 20 case studies, 7 SAAT analysis axes.
64
Initiatives visited
20
Case studies
191,121
ha studied
935,000
Inhabitants
13
Municipalities
Methodology
A transdisciplinary approach
Three pillars woven together: dense field work, a 7-axis SAAT analytical grid, and a territory laid out in its numbers.
Analysis
- 7 SAAT axes: productive base, labour, livelihoods, property, value chains, governance, sociocultural
- CSE 2010-2020 spatial analysis
- Document and policy review
Territory
- 191,121 ha studied (Mbour department)
- 935,000 inhabitants
- 13 municipalities
- Petite-Côte: Joal-Fadiouth to Nguékhokh
- Coastal zone and agricultural hinterland
Interactive geoportal
creates.ngo/diagnostic
All map layers, sources and underlying datasets, open for free exploration.
Context
Unprecedented demographic growth
The Dakar-Thiès-Mbour triangle concentrates 29 % of national food demand. The motorway (2019), the AIBD airport (2017) and the future Ndayane port are turning this territory into a peri-urban extension of Dakar.
Soils and land grabbing
A territory with 70 % sandy soils
Structurally dependent on irrigation. The 25 % of fertile soils are the first targeted by agribusiness.
70%
Dior (sandy)
Easy to mechanise, poor water and nutrient retention. Unproductive without irrigation.
25%
Deck / Deck-dior (sandy-clay)
Better natural fertility and water retention. Most coveted by agribusiness.
5%
Lowlands (hydromorphic)
Refuge soils for family market gardening. Marginal area, eaten away by urbanisation.
25 % of soils are fertile. They are the first to be grabbed. Zero agricultural protection zoning.
Land cover 2010-2020
A territory in polarisation
Sources: ANAT, CSE, ANSD 2020. Mbour department (191,121 ha).
All that grows is tied to artificialisation. All that shrinks is a natural space.
Territorial governance
An architecture yet to be built
64 % of initiatives have never heard of the DyTAEL. Agroecological governance is not yet in place.
DyTAEL awareness
64 %
28.4 %
7.6 %
Never heard of it Aware, not member Active members
Distribution of decision-making power
Private (agribusiness, tourism, real estate) ●●●● Weak
State (technical services) ●●●● Weak
Local authorities ●●●● Weak
Peasant organisations ●●●● Very weak
7 DyTAEL functions to activate
- Network
- Advocacy
- Training
- Economic facilitation
- Monitoring and alert
- Mediation
- Innovation
Innovative tools deployed
-
Participatory mapping
Three localities (Tchicky, Thiafoura, Sandiara): local knowledge integrated into GIS, returned to village committees.
-
Forum theatre
Generational and gender conflicts brought into dialogue, equitable speech spaces created.
-
Transformative scenario building
Projection into desirable or undesirable futures, co-construction of pathways.
Polarisation
Three territorial dynamics
Coastal fringe under pressure, inland agribusiness front, rainfed hinterland.
Coastal fringe
Sindia · Malicounda · Diass
- Stacked pressures: urbanisation, agribusiness, quarries, tourism
- Savannahs nearly gone (-88 %)
- Steppes retreating (-31 %)
- Densities above 5,000 inhab/km²
- Generalised land-use conflicts
Inland front
Sandiara
- 3rd municipality for agribusiness: 947 ha, 6.4 % of municipal territory
- No coastline, but access to the Maastrichtian aquifer
- Close to Balabougou forest (1,216 ha at risk of declassification)
- Deck-dior soils available, cheaper land than the coast
Deep interior
Ndiaganiao · Fissel · Sessène
- Near-monoculture rainfed (peanut, millet, cowpea)
- Very little economic diversification
- Densities of 100-200 inhab/km²
- Family-farming base still intact
- Low public and private investment
Pressure does not stay on the coast. Sandiara shows that agribusiness moves inland as soon as land allows.
Agribusiness
A model under strain
Growth and land grabbing on a backdrop of chronic water stress.
+85 %
irrigated areas (1,144 → 2,116 ha between 2010 and 2020)
~30
farms of 50 to 400 ha
350 ha
Produmel (Spain): export melon at Nguéniène
-12 m
water table since the 1960s - aquifer salinisation (+85 % salt flats)
Without water, we cannot do anything. The community borehole was taken over by a company that grows melons for export...
Impacts on the territory
Water stress
Massive draws on an already deficit aquifer. Direct competition with domestic and peasant uses.
Land grabbing
Municipal deliberations diverted. Pastoral corridors cut. Village lands encircled by farms.
Working conditions
Precarious seasonal wage labour, no social protection. Heavy pesticide use near homes and water points.
100 % export
Zero local food benefit. Value added captured by foreign operators (Spain, China, Netherlands).
Inputs vs agroecology
Public support still geared toward inputs
734 tonnes of chemical fertilizers delivered in Mbour. Only 20 % of planned peanut seeds were delivered. Agroecology remains very poorly funded.
What the State funds
734
tonnes of fertilizer (1/3 of the entire Thiès region)
- 734 t of chemical fertilizers (urea, NPK)
- Subsidies for conventional seeds
- Formal credit oriented towards large farms
- Agribusiness: 30 farms of 50 to 400 ha
What agroecology gets
20%
20 % of planned peanut seeds actually delivered (2022-2023 campaign)
- 3.8 % of structural financing
- 0 dedicated budget line
- 0 organised differentiated market
- Speeches. Lots of speeches.
Can we claim to support agroecology while subsidising 734 tonnes of chemical fertilizers and delivering only 20 % of promised seeds?
Value chains
Products invisible on the market
Three circuits, three problems, three levers for change.
Three circuits, three problems
-
Local markets - no bio/conventional differentiation, middlemen capture value
-
Flows to Dakar (29 % of national demand) - degraded rural tracks, transport costs, dependence on wholesalers
-
Export (melon, green bean, mango) - unsold dumped on local markets at rock-bottom prices, ruining small producers
Import dependence: Rice (Vietnam, Thailand), powdered milk, vegetable oil, frozen chickens at prices that beat any local competition.
Three levers
Lever 1
Tourism and catering
Saly hotels and restaurants want local, traceable produce. Ecotourism willing to pay. Public collective catering (canteens, hospitals): embryonic but huge potential.
Lever 2
Emerging short circuits
Dialaw bio market (weekly, Ferme des 4 Chemins). Peasant baskets (AMAP model). Roadside sales on the Dakar-Mbour axis.
Lever 3
PGS rather than certification
Bio Label: high cost, limited accessibility, external audit, admin language. PGS: low cost, wide accessibility, social oversight, local languages.
Labour organisation
The gendered division of labour
Women perform much of the agroecological work, with limited access to credit and land.
Women - what they do
73 %
of agroecological workforce
70-80 %
of agricultural labour
5 000+
fish processors
What they get
- < 10 % of formal agricultural credit
- 3,8 % have documented land rights (vs 20.4 % for men)
- 0 seat on municipal land commissions
- 0 formal land title among the 64 initiatives
Youth
50 %
of the population is under 20
15 %
of young farmers access formal credit
140/150 000
beneficiaries of the Agri-Jeunes Tekki Ndawni programme
Precarious wage labour
2 500 - 3 000 FCFA/jour
no social protection, often seasonal. Former peasants become farm labourers on the very lands they used to cultivate.
73 % of the workforce, less than 10 % of credit, zero land title. Women's labour funds the transition without benefiting from it.
Livelihoods
The credit gap
13 % of rural people access formal credit - three times less than the national average.
13%
Rural Mbour
39.8%
National average
Structural obstacles
95 %
of land has no formal title - no banking collateral
0
public budget line dedicated to agroecology
15,6 %
of initiatives master production + processing + sales
0 %
of farms keep accounting books
Innovations that work
Warrantage (credit-storage)
68 households stored 38 tonnes of millet and got 3 M FCFA of credit at 12 % (vs 50-100 % in informal circuits).
Agricultural fintech
Mlouma: 75,000 users (online agricultural exchange). BaySeddo: 125 M FCFA mobilised through agricultural crowdfunding.
PGS (Participatory Guarantee System)
809 certified producers, 664 t of products marketed, 453 M FCFA in value.
Index insurance
Climate risk coverage based on weather indices, 50 % subsidised by the State.
13 % credit access, zero farm accounting, zero agroecology budget. The tools exist; the scaling does not.
Sociocultural factors
Two agroecologies, one identity at risk
Millet recedes as imported rice advances. Agroecology cannot be an imported model: it must build on existing knowledge.
Vernacular
- Ancestral practices (Sereer, Lebou, Fula)
- Empirical knowledge passed down through generations
- Peasant seeds adapted to local conditions
- De facto agroecology, without the vocabulary
Technical / NGO
- Formalised practices (compost, biopesticides, PGS)
- Reference to scientific knowledge and certifications
- Driven by NGOs, development projects, training
- Label and market logic
Peasant seeds, better adapted to local conditions, struggle for recognition. Two models coexist: one capitalist, the other built on resilience.
Three threatened knowledge systems
Sereer
Practice: Fallow/millet rotation, crop-livestock integration, collective land management
→ Threat: Fallows gone, cycles broken, youth exodus
Lebou
Practice: Fishing calendars, biological rest, preservation (kethiakh, guedj)
→ Threat: Industrial overfishing, fishmeal plants, coastal erosion
Fula
Practice: Regulated transhumance, knowledge of pastures and water points
→ Threat: Corridors closed, water points privatised, land-use conflicts
Identity as a lever
- 01 Living culinary heritage (thieboudienne, lakh, local couscous)
- 02 Spiritual link to the land: agroecology as a return to ancestors
- 03 SAAFI and women's groups: revival of local cereals
- 04 Build bridges between vernacular and scientific knowledge
Synthesis
What blocks the transition
Four locks identified. None of them lifts without coordination.
1/13
municipality plans
Land
Speculation, no SCADT, weakened customary rights, privatisation of the commons.
+85 %
irrigated areas
Water
Competition between agriculture, tourism and industry; aquifer salinisation.
70 %
no network
Isolation
70 % of initiatives off-network, 64 % do not know about the DyTAEL, no accessible certification.
0
food impact study
Governance
Sectoral planning, disconnected mega-projects, women excluded from decisions.
At the crossroads
Two trajectories
Without coordinated action
- Irremediable spatial fragmentation
- Dependence on globalised chains
- Loss of commons and local knowledge
- Structural food insecurity
With agroecological transition
- Structured local value chains
- Sustainable jobs (73 % women)
- Restored ecological resilience
- Strengthened food sovereignty
Call
What we ask of the Departmental Council
The DyTAEL is ready to coordinate. The territory is waiting for a political signal.
-
01
Secure agricultural land
Municipal SCADT with protected agricultural zones. Strengthen land commissions with producers.
-
02
Guarantee access to water
Rehabilitate water infrastructure. Economical irrigation. Collective management (ASUFOR).
-
03
Structure local value chains
Peasant markets, territorial PGS, shared processing and storage infrastructure.
-
04
Include women and youth
Land and credit access for women. Adapted training for youth. Equity in governance.
-
05
Connect mega-projects to food
Local clauses in SEZs. Mandatory food impact studies for structural projects.
-
06
Value knowledge and food culture
Document threatened local knowledge. School food education. General public awareness.
Sources and references
Where the numbers come from
Quantitative data
-
ANSD
General census, demographic projections 2013-2023
-
CSE
Land cover 2010-2020, satellite imagery
-
WorldPop
Spatially disaggregated population densities (2024)
-
ANAT
Territorial planning, zoning
-
DRDR Thiès
Mineral fertilizers, 2018-2019 campaign
-
DAPSA
Subsidised seeds, 2022-2023 campaign
-
FAO / CRODT
Fisheries statistics, catches
Field data
-
AE initiatives survey
64 initiatives visited, SAAT questionnaire (n=40), 2024
-
Case studies
20 in-depth studies (semi-structured interviews), 2024
-
Participatory mapping
Multi-stakeholder workshops, Sandiara and Sindia, 2025
-
Forum theatre
Community restitution and validation, 2025
-
Expert interviews
Technical services, elected officials, peasant leaders, 2024-2025
Institutional framework
-
LOASP (2004)
Agro-sylvo-pastoral orientation law
-
Forest Code (2018)
Classified forests and declassification regime
-
Decentralisation Act III
Devolution of powers, municipal SCADT
-
AE Strategy (MAER, 2023)
National agroecology strategy
-
SEZ (APIX)
Special economic zones, exemption regime
Citation: DyTAEL MBOUR, 2026, Territorial Diagnostic of Agroecology-Based Territorialised Food Systems. Mbour Department - Petite-Côte. ARTS-SOR4D project, SNSF / SDC.
Coordination: University of Bern, IPAR, ENDA Pronat, DyTAES. Funding: Swiss National Science Foundation / Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.
Continue
Three onward links
01
Interactive geoportal
All cartographic layers, sources and raw data behind the diagnostic, open for exploration.
02
Scenario-building workshop
From diagnostic to foresight: 3 days, 5 thematic groups, 5 forum theatre pieces, one shared 2050 vision.
03
Atlas of initiatives
Interactive map of the 100 agroecological initiatives mapped across Bignona and Mbour.