The Serer people live in a rural area, but during the last 10 years the effects of poverty have driven many towards the big cities, more specifically Dakar, in an effort to find employment. They are typical village people, deeply attached to their land, their families and their traditional way of life. They grow millet and peanuts in their fields. Although some live on the coastal areas and are involved in fishing, their main focus of economic activity is agriculture.
The Serer are skilled farmers and they would most likely be able to achieve a modest standard of living if the rainfall was more abundant. Unfortunately, the climatic situation has deteriorated over the last 30 years: average rainfall is often under 500 mm a year and the rainy season seems to be get shorter and shorter. As a result, subsistence agriculture is no longer providing the basic necessities for life in the village communities. This explains the annual migration of villagers during the dry season, when the young adults move to the cities in a desperate attempt to survive and find resources for their families back in the village. As a result, the Serer area has become a poverty-stricken zone where over-exploitation of the fields and deforestation have greatly contributed to the deterioration of the environment.
Alternative solutions such as switching to intensive gardening (utilizing water drawn from shallow wells) instead of depending on the rains have not been very successful due to a lack of capital, to corruption, and to a deficient education system that exclusively focuses on the development of urban elites. As part of the solution, we anticipate that the addition of community gardens will greatly aid our partner communities, whereby local farmers will be equipped with the means and the technology to be able to grow high-value crops on a year-round basis.
The Beer-Sheba project also aims to be at the forefront of new technologies and adding value to agricultural products through a well managed dairy/livestock operation. Regrettably, Senegal continues to heavily rely on imported milk powder despite having large numbers of cows in country.
Other revenue opportunities that we will seek to develop will be sub-products derived from our value-added processes and marketed locally within Senegal.
