T
he Fatick region, population 613,000, is located 155 kilometres from the Senegalese capital of Dakar. A good illustration of humanity’s struggle against nature and climatic and environmental hazards, Senegal has – together with the African Development Bank, which is supporting the Project to Support Local Small-Scale Irrigation (PAPIL) – committed to winning hectares of salinized land back from the sea to use them for agriculture. A fitting reversal, because there was a time when the peanut, the flagship crop of Senegal, was the main agricultural resource there. But the salt marshes ultimately got the economic upperhand with the production and marketing of salt. Thus began the invasion of the land by salt....