According to Aly Ndiaye, Minister of Agriculture, Rural Equipment and Food Sovereignty, Senegal plans to start growing wheat from November this year.

«We are already thinking about starting with 1,000 hectares, but private partners ask us to start producing with 5,000 hectares. In any case, we are going to accompany these achievements,” said Ndiaye.

This decision is based on a pilot program started since October 2022 by the National Agricultural Research Institute (ISRA) mainly with Egyptian wheat seeds, reports the ecofin agency.

Through this program, experiments are being carried out in 5 sites of 1 hectare each spread across the north of the country with three varieties of soft wheat and one variety of durum wheat.

The initiative is part of a strategy to promote local cereal production to progressively reduce the constantly increasing import bill.

Senegal's wheat imports have increased by almost 9% to reach 754,000 tonnes in 2021, at a total cost of 149.3 billion CFA francs, according to data from the National Agency for Statistics and Demography (ANSD).

Source: L'observateurMarocAfrique