From New Delhi to Dakar: the quest for food self-sufficiency and its implications for smallholder farmers

This paper explores the potential for Green Revolution-type agricultural intensification to occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as possible socio-economic, environmental and human health consequences which could result from such growth. An historical comparative analysis is developed using evidence from India, preceding and during its agricultural Green Revolution, and applied to the case of Senegal, a country in West Africa that, in many ways, typifies the historical and contemporary agricultural experience in Sub-Saharan Africa. The analysis reveals that, despite divergent conditions, Senegal and, by extension, Sub-Saharan Africa, could be poised to realize agricultural growth similar to that in India; but this may also be accompanied by similar consequences for smallholder farmers and the environment.