6 - Dynamiques migratoires et sécurité alimentaire à Tuabou (Sénégal)

Abstract

Tuabou is a Soninké locality in the department of Bakel strongly affected by migration linked to the harsh ecological conditions from the 1930s. This article addresses food security through the lens of the impact of migration dynamics on the agricultural production system in Tuabou. It is based on documentary research, a survey of the concessions, interviews and observations. According to

the information gathered, in the decade before independence, food needs were based on millet and wild fonio, which compensated for the lack of cereals. The period from the 1960s to the end of the 1990s corresponds to the dependence on remittances. As the migratory networks ran out of steam, flood recession and irrigated agriculture emerged as alternatives, but with some innovation. While flood recession agriculture had the family as the unit of intervention, individual and family plots increasingly coexist. More than 85 percent of the concessions combine income from out-migration with the sale of the products of this agriculture to cover food needs. The income generated by individual plots satisfies the individual needs of their owners.