Achieving agricultural sovereignty requires large-scale, sovereign agricultural production. To this end, three major challenges must be addressed: land, technology, and financing. At least, that's according to the director of the Senegalese Agricultural and Industrial Development Company (SODAGRI). Aboubakar Sidi Sonko was speaking at the ceremony marking the launch of a joint project with the Sovereign Fund for Strategic Investments (FONSIS) to strengthen Senegalese agriculture, particularly in the Casamance region, during the President's economic tour.

This pooling of synergies is the culmination of a long-term process, indicated the CEO of SODAGRI, but above all the launch of a new strategic project for the food sovereignty of Senegal.

According to him, "one of the first sovereignties is food sovereignty. And everything we will do within the framework of this convention contributes to achieving this objective. The convention involves several actors, because we need everyone. There are a lot of challenges we face. First, there are three major challenges: land, technology, and financing. And none of these challenges can allow us to achieve the objective without the others. Land, because we need land to work and develop agriculture."

Plans also include the establishment of mega-farms of 10,000 hectares to produce massively, create decentralized jobs and support small farms, according to the director general of FONSIS.

"Mega-farms allow for three things: massive production, in order to reduce imports; the creation of decentralized employment, decent employment that allows young people and women to have jobs; but above all, support for family farms. This is a very important project because, as you know, the State of Senegal is building the Southern Agropole in Casamance, which is an agro-industrial processing region. This Agribeta project will provide the agropole with enough raw materials to process them. And this will allow Senegal to decrease imports and reduce its dependence on foreign countries," said Babacar Gning.

Collaboration between the State, mayors and the private sector is expected, as is securing land and mobilizing the necessary technical and financial resources to make Casamance an agro-industrial hub.

Moreover, the mobilization of the mayors was welcomed by the two officials of these state programs, in a dynamic of reviving the social and economic activities of Casamance in the quest for food and national sovereignty.