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A lush canopy of coconut, mango,
papaya, and sapotier trees hovers above a traditional fence
made of millet stalks and palm fronds. Outside, a fairly typical
dusty vacant lot is populated by goats nibbling on old plastic
bags and other urban detritus.
The fenced oasis seems out of place in this grid of sandy
streets and high cement walls of the Ndiolofen neighborhood
of Saint-Louis on the northwest coast of Senegal. The site
is a couple of blocks off the main paved road that heads east
along the Senegal River delta leading to the North Atlantic.
Behind the battered corrugated tin door lies Doudou Diallo’s
small – and amazing -- organic vegetable and fruit garden.
To describe Doudou’s garden as Eden-like would be stooping
to a cliché that fails to underscore the sweat and
rugged persistence invested in its creation.
Doudou, 32, began working in this family garden 10 years
ago when his father’s health began to fail. The garden
is only 32 yards square, a patchwork of small 3-by-6-foot
beds cropped with lettuce, beans, cassava, maize, sweet potato,
basil, mint, onions, leeks, chives, carrots, peppers, eggplants,
and more. Doudou inherited the garden when his father died
in 2003 and now is responsible for the welfare of his brothers
and sisters.
“They call me ‘Papa’ now. But I’m
not really a papa because I don’t have any
kids myself!” he explains. Yet he takes his responsibilities
to the family seriously. For Doudou and for most urban farmers
in West Africa—where city dwellers may spend as much
as 70 percent of their income on food—gardening is an
economically viable means of feeding the family and supplementing
the diet with healthy vegetables. What these determined farmers
raise on their intensely cultivated spaces is an economic
and nutritional buffer in hard times.
Banking on lettuce
Lettuce is Doudou’s
primary cash crop. “People love lettuce. They eat and
eat and eat it!” he laughs.
His mother and younger sister sell it for him at the main
market by the Pont Faidherbe, the dapper 1870s iron trellis
bridge shipped to Saint-Louis when it was the colonial capital
of French West Africa. Because demand for salad is high in
this urban center, Doudou has a good market. The crop also
has a relatively fast turnover: “After two months, it’s
finished and I can plant again.”
Leeks are another important cash crop; selling at the hotels
in town for about 50 cents per pound. Another high value crop
for Doudou is mboro boro a leafy green that earns
him about 20 cents per small bunch. A small coconut palm nursery
at the back of the garden serves as equity in reserve. “If
you can’t pay your bills, you dig one up and you sell
it!”
Water is his main expense. He limits his use to just over
26,000 gallons of water a month from the municipal water system,
which costs him about $20. A hose slowly fills a concrete
cistern in the middle of the garden. His younger brother fills
a watering can from the concrete reservoir to sprinkle the
beds before the heat of the morning sun filters through the
palm leaves above.
Doudou uses only compost to fertilize his garden beds. He
makes the compost from manure, garden wastes and leaves from
the N-fixing ipil-ipil tree (Leucaena Leucephala).
He avoids chemical fertilizers because he says they make the
quality of the produce much lower. “With chemical fertilizer,
you cut it and it’s rotten within a day or two.”
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“With chemical fertilizer, you
cut it and it’s rotten within a day or two.”
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When preparing beds, he sprinkles a small cupful of wood ash
on the soil and waters with a tea made from neem (Azadirachta
indica) leaves, a well known natural pesticide. He is well
aware of the potential dangers of wrongly-applied synthetic
pesticides. Most of the agricultural chemicals used in Senegal
are applied in urban gardens, often at dangerously high rates
that ultimately lead to public health risks. To avoid these
dangers, to keep his garden healthy, and simply to save money,
Doudou only uses natural pest control.
In addition to neem tea, he plants flowers in each bed to
attract beneficial insects and trap others -- or at least
distract them away from his produce. He points to a catatonic
stink bug between two leaves of a woody shrub next to the
leeks, “See, he’s lost!” He also sells many
of the regal zinnias and marigolds that gild the verdant vegetable
beds. “People just come to me here in the garden and
want to buy them.”
This is true of his produce as well. While there is no real
premium for organic produce in Senegal, many of his customers
recognize its superior quality. Some of them even pay him
more than he asks. For the most part, however, he continues
to sell at market prices.
His first effort to set up a contract with the nearby Université
de Saint-Louis met with results that that surely resonate
with small farmers worldwide: he was unable to produce enough
for their demand or sell at a low enough price.
Despite Doudou Diallo’s humble demeanor, it’s
clear that he is proud of the garden and the outstanding quality
of the food it produces. It’s clear to those around
him that he does indeed live up to the title “Papa.”
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