We’re excited to announce the official launch of myAgro’s pilot program in eastern Senegal.
After spending the first part of the year conducting baseline surveys and learning more about the challenges farmers face in this region. myAgro has selected 23 villages in the communes of Sinthiou Maleme and Ndoga Babacar in which to launch our Senegal program. Six dedicated field officers, all of whom grew up and reside in the target villages, are leading our pilot.
This season, we will be partnering with a number of early adopter farmers to cultivate maize, sorghum and peanuts, a main cash crop in Senegal. We will also run test plots in all of our villages to teach myAgro’s planting methods to farmers, which helped double crop yields for participating farmers in Mali last season.
The Senegal program also gives us the opportunity to add a new product to our repertoire: millet. Our field team will be running trials with millet, a crop which has a significant amount of cultural and dietary importance in this part of Senegal.
As in much of West Africa, the biggest challenge for farmers in Tambacounda region is a lack of access to high quality seed and fertilizer, as well as assuring that these vital inputs arrive before the rainy season begins. The market for certified seed and quality fertilizer is less-developed in this region than anywhere else in the country; the majority of farmers cultivate enormous tracts of land without putting any sort of nutrients back into the soil, primarily using seed that has been saved year after year. Thus, the myAgro approach – providing affordable access to seed, fertilizer and training, well in advance of the rains – has been well received.
Just last week, we opened our myAgro store in the market center of Sinthiou Maleme, to a great deal of enthusiasm and anticipation from the local community. Our in-country team is enthusiastic to see how the myAgro model can help Senegalese farmers profit more. Or as we say in Wolof: “Suqali njëriñu mbéy mi!”
