Women’s Cooperative Gardens are leading the expansion of fish farming in Senegal. By integrating fish farming into established gardens, communities increase food security and diversity without using additional water.
In rural Senegal, where water is limited and conditions are harsh, it would be easy to assume that fish farming would be a risky venture requiring major investment. What Andando has seen instead is that women in small rural cooperatives are not only succeeding where others might expect failure, they are mastering this skill and helping lead the expansion of aquaculture across the Sahel.
“Especially since we live in a dry area. The locals didn’t believe that fish farming would be possible here. But Mash’Allah, everything went well. ”
But how can fish farming in such arid regions be possible on any meaningful scale? The answer lies in working within limits so the same water does double duty. Solar pumps pass daily irrigation water first through basins of tilapia, producing fish for food and sale, and adding nutrients to the water which then naturally fertilizes crops.
Dickel Sow (right) and other members of the Mbantou Croissement women’s garden with their first fish.
The impact of Andando’s most recent aquaculture integrations in the Mbantou Croissement and Mboyo Walo women’s gardens has been immediate and visible. As Dickel Sow explained,
“If we didn’t have this fish pond, we would have gone elsewhere to buy fish. But now we raise fish ourselves, and we also eat and sell. And all our friends and family often come to buy them.”
Aminata Elhadj Diagne (left) with other members of the fish farming committee of Mboyo Walo.
Greater access to fish and increased yields are also having a transformative impact on nutrition in these villages:
“We used to have up to 35 children suffering from malnutrition... But now it is a part of our past, here in Mboyo.”
Oumou Ndiaye of Mboyo Walo, showing her garden plot, which is more productive than ever this year.
These women are proving once again that sustainable food security solutions can grow from the ground up, with local leaders forging the way.
