Senegal: Africa’s food security challenges along the supply chain

Senegal is home to 350,000 herding families. But in Dakar, the West African nation’s capital, grocery store shelves are piled high with powdered milk—mainly imported from Europe. The situation is a stark example of the stubborn agriculture production and supply chain challenges most African countries face. Senegal’s dairy industry faces multiple challenges, including low productivity and a weak supply chain. These obstacles affect the production of numerous foods across the continent, an issue exacerbated in some countries by inadequate access to inputs, financing and land, along with weak transport and logistics systems. It doesn’t have to be this way. Africa’s agriculture sector employs on average over half of the labor force, producing high-quality products ranging from rice, fruits and vegetables, to tea, coffee, cocoa and vanilla. Nonetheless, malnourishment persists across much of the continent. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that over 250 million ...