A regional development committee (CRD) brought together administrative and territorial authorities, financial partners and producers from the region around the governor of Matam this weekend, on the occasion of the launch ceremony of the 2026 hot off-season campaign.

With 2,800 hectares of rice sown and nearly 17,000 tons of paddy harvested, the 2025 hot off-season campaign yielded significant results, greatly praised by stakeholders, especially producers. Rice farmers in the Matam region intend to meet this challenge, having committed to planting 3,300 hectares for the 2026 off-season campaign, scheduled from January to June – 500 hectares more than the last hot season.

The 2026 hot off-season campaign launches the implementation of the rice farming program contract signed by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Interprofessional Rice Committee in September, at the national conference of the sector held in Saint-Louis in January 2025.

After a winter campaign marked by floods in Senegal (floods, degradation of plots, crop losses), the hot off-season is an alternative for many producers who have suffered several damages.

Rice farmers have taken this CRD to address the challenges and constraints related to water management, high electricity costs, insufficient agricultural equipment, outdated motor pumps, degradation of plots and irrigation canals, and the management of granivorous birds, as well as the low quantity of fertilizer and the lack of certified seeds, among other things.

These are all questions that concern Saed, which, according to sector officials, is already deploying measures in securing water, ensuring the availability of inputs, mobilizing agricultural equipment, and rehabilitating damaged facilities.

"The program contract has recorded all the constraints, after diagnosing and identifying levers on which it will be necessary to rely for a valorization of productions in order to contribute adequately to the objectives of food sovereignty," according to the representative of the director general of Saed, Paul Marie Faye.

The director of development and support to local authorities at Saed, Abou Sall, reassured producers about the measures that will be taken by Saed and its partners, under the impetus of the supervising ministry, to make agriculture more efficient and resilient in the region.

Urging rice farmers to plan for the future, he asked them to redouble their efforts in respecting the cultivation calendar, using agricultural equipment and maintaining the rice paddies.