Forest Gardens in Senegal

An attempt at sustainable production, poverty alleviation, and land regeneration through Agro-Forestry

Karan S. Shakya

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What are Forest Gardens?

Forest Gardens consists of a variety of fast-growing trees that provide households with high-value fruits/vegetables, livestock feed, fuel wood, and new avenues for income.

TREES for the Future

The organization TREES enlists farmer volunteers and provides them with the seeds and training required to sustain a Forest Garden. They work across 9 Sub-Saharan countries and have a goal of planting one billion trees by 2030.

Requirements for TREES

In order to adopt a Forest Gardens, TREES have a few general requirements:

  1. Participants must own the land they are allocating for Forest Gardens.
  2. Participants are able to fence their Forest Gardens.
  3. Participants have access to a water source (wells, taps) required to irrigate the plants within a Forest Garden.

TREES in Senegal

In rural Senegal, most farmers rely on rain-fed agriculture (maize, millet, peanuts) to sustain their livelihoods. Forest Gardens have the potential to provide farmers with work during the non-harvest season and access to vegetables and fruits that can be sold at higher prices at local markets.

Our Plan

In order to study the impact of Forest Gardens in Senegal, we conduct 3 focus group interviews consisting of:

  1. Adopters (participants who own/owned a Forest Garden)
  2. Women (female family members of adopters)
  3. Non-Adopters (villagers who have not adopted a Forest Garden)

We conduct these interviews in each of the 3 randomly selected villages in the Fatick region (blue), and 2 villages in the Kaffrine region (red).

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What we learnt about Forest Gardens in Senegal?

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1. Lack of fences in a serious problem

Local forest wood are protected by the Forest Services

Alternate resources for fencing can be risky

Need for fences are driven by local grazing situations

Live fences needs to be supplemented with dead fences always

2. Water problems vary by village

In Fatick, a lack of wells lead to participants having a hard time watering their Forest Gardens

In Kaffrine, high water fees lead to many adopters leaving their Forest Gardens.

The burden of watering Forest Garden fell to women.

3. Forest Gardens rely heavily on labor from women

Commitment required to maintain and protect Forest Gardens lead to women having no time for social activities.

Forest Garden commitments also took time away from other activities and sources of income.

4. Women rarely own their own Forest Gardens, and they want to.

These Forest Gardens has the potential to provide a sustained source of income.

However, without additional support like adequate fences and access to irrigation, these Forest Gardens were likely to remain barren.

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5. Villagers value Forest Gardens

Through training with TREES, Forest Gardens participants have access to diverse seed varieties, which they can sell for a larger amount.

Forest Gardens provide dry season employment, leading to better seasonal income. These also provide a secure source of food and vegetables too.

The training and knowledge, through the TREES program, is also valued by farmers.

With just a little bit more help, such as the provision of fences, Forest Gardens can move from a risky investment to a successful one.