On Sunday, the cotton producers of Vélingara received a visit from the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Equipment, Aly Ngouille Ndiaye, who came to inquire about the situation of the plots, after having received an alert informing of the attack of the cotton plants by insect pests. He reassured of the solidarity of the State.
Par Abdoulaye CHAMBER – Aly Ngouille Ndiaye, new Minister of Agriculture, Rural Equipment and Food Sovereignty, devoted his first official visit, after taking office, to the first cotton-producing region of Senegal, that of Vélingara. It was last Sunday to tread the cotton fields attacked by a sucker-biting fly which ended up annihilating the hopes of thousands of peasants from all the cotton-producing areas of Senegal.
In Vélingara, Aly Ngouille Ndiaye and his delegation went to the village of Wadiyatoulaye, commune of Linkéring, about ten kilometers from Guinea Conakry. Mamadou Saliou Baldé, owner of the 15-hectare plot visited, told the Minister and the General Management of Sodefitex of the extent of all the concern that inhabits him in the face of the questions of survival of his family and the breakage head of the payment of his debt. He says: “I took out a loan of more than 6 million CFA francs to plant 25 ha of cotton. Today, I am not able to pay half of this loan from the expected production here. We are asking the state to pay off our debt, in addition to helping us survive until the next harvest.”
And then the Director General of the Textile Fiber Development Company of Senegal (Sodefitex), Pape Fata Ndiaye, to explain technically what happened to bring us to this situation. “This campaign is characterized by an infestation of jassids which have invaded the cotton fields. The jassid is a sucking-stinging pest, in the shape of a small green grasshopper, living on the inner side of the leaves of the cotton plant. The attacked leaves become deformed, curl downwards, tense up and the reproductive organs fall,” he explains.
The consequences are thus enormous. “The areas totally devastated due to heavy infestations are currently estimated at 3,000 ha, or 14% of the area sown in the entire cotton-growing area of the country. The areas likely to be harvested will experience a drop in their potential estimated at more than 50%,” say the specialists. A reality which, for sure, will lead to a drop in the national production of white gold, and therefore a significant shortfall for producers whose income from cotton finances all the other needs of the family: health, education of children, purchase of agricultural equipment, food…
Aly Ngouille Ndiaye, who took winding, muddy, steep roads, wiped his face several times to chase away the insect pests that lurked around. Sensitive to the situation, he reassured the producers of the solidarity of the State, without however giving the assurance that their debts of the agricultural campaign will be mopped up. He says, “I think solutions will be found. For now, I came to inquire about the situation. Afterwards, we will see, in particular with Sodefitex and the producers, how to relieve these populations. When people can’t afford campaign credits, that’s a problem. We will look at the best scheme to relieve the producers.”
A sub-regional phenomenon
Senegal is not the only cotton producer affected in West Africa by this ferocious parasitism. According to the CEO of Sodefitex, Pape Fata Ndiaye, “this phenomenon has been observed throughout the cotton basin of West Africa. The countries most affected are Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Mali, Togo, Benin and Cameroon. Only Chad is spared for the moment. Cotton production will drop drastically in Africa.”
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