Les Fonctions reconnues à l'agriculture intra et périurbaine - HAL

Abstract
As it is generally noted in other developing countries, the urban population of
Dakar is fast growing, due to natural growth and immigration. This situation raises, among
others, the issues of food supply, particularly fresh produces and sustainable
management of opened spaces: Niayes and agricultural areas in the surroundings of
Rufisque.
Moreover, two programs ongoing in Dakar: the PASDUNE (Program of actions for
protection and urban development of the Niayes and green zones of Dakar) and the Microgardens
are re-actualizing the necessity to examine the place of a sustainable agriculture in
the working of this capital region.
The problematic presents the concepts of urban agriculture, multifunctionality of
agriculture and sustainable city and the context.
The methodology is based on surveys of six categories of actors (farmers, retailers
and bana-banas, consumers, elected people, planners and agents of the agricultural council
and technical training) to test the three following hypotheses: different functions are
recognized to Niayes and agriculture; economic functions predominate; this functional
recognition is important to maintain agriculture in situ.
Our results show that:
- even if all categories of actors are aware of the food supply role of the intra and periurban
agriculture in Dakar, the actors of the agricultural sector - farmers, middlemen
(retailers and bana-banas) and consumers – place in a prominent position the economic
functions while decision-makers - elected people, and agents of the agricultural council
and technical training - put forward environmental and landscape (green lung)
functions;
- From the thorough typology we built, there is a great diversity of production and
activity’s systems in the four key areas (with or without Niayes, near or far from the city)
of agriculture we have identified. Moreover, intrinsic and exogenous sustainability of
farms, in the meaning of Godard and Hubert (2002), is variable depending on the types
of production and activity’s systems and the areas;
- The middlemen and consumers give great importance to the freshness and the
cheapness of Niayes produces but some of them have talked about the limit of using
wastewater and pesticides in some sites and have considered that micro-gardens’
produces are more wholesome.
At last, the discussion compares our results with the bibliography and notes the
limits of our study while stressing the scientific and operational perspective it offers.
Our work shows the great diversification of Dakar’s agriculture and the
necessity to set up mediation between the different categories of actors in order to
promote a sustainable agriculture, a better living environment and a sustainable city.