The document summarizes research on "sourga", or seasonal agricultural workers, in Senegal's Senegal River Valley. Key findings include: 1) Sourga work on farms during agricultural campaigns, staying seasonally or for years. They perform tasks like plowing, weeding, planting, and harvesting. 2) Sourga are paid either through sharecropping arrangements or cash wages averaging 35,000 CFA ($60) per month. Payment periods are at the end of campaigns or through cash advances. 3) Relations between sourga and employers are informal, with concerns around work timelines and benefits but also threats like non-payment and lack of job security or social protections

1. Amadou NDIAYE
Presentation

2. Agricultural Non-family Workers
(Sourga) in Senegal River Valley
• Navetanat phenomenon:
- Colonial system: Introduction of groundnut
- Seasonal worker : Rainy season
- In 1970s : Regression (Economic crisis and dry climat)
• Sourga phenomenon : Niayes Zone and Senegal
River Valley (later 1990s)
- Sourga in Niayes Zone : Seasonals workers
 stay: Cold season
 paid as sharecropping
- Senegal River Valley : what about the phenomenom?

3. Objectives
• General objective : Determine status,
relationships and perpectives of the Sourga in the
Senegal River Valley
• Specifiques objectives :
- Describe the Senegal Valley cropping system
- Identify the type profile of Sourga in the River
Valley
- Characterize the relationship between Sourga and
employer

4. Results (1/7): The Valley system of
production (General system)
• The plots (Irrigation Facilities) : 102 525 ha in a
potential of 240 000 ha en 2010
• 3 seasons of cropping: Rainy season (July-
November) Cold season (November to February)
and Warm season (February to June).
• Two types of productions :
- Food production (rice and corn): Rainy /Warm
season
- Vegetable production: Cold season (tomato,
onions), Warm season (sweet potatoes), Rainy
(watermelon and cabidge)

5. Results (2/7): The Valley system of
production (farming system)
• Financing system
- A founding bank system : tomato mainly
- Divers sources of financing : Profit in the tomato,
Livestock commercialisation, Perdium, Migrant, Micro-
finance system.
• Inputs: extension system (state, NGO) and weekly
market
• Commercialisation: informal marketing system (except
tomato)
• Garanty : No agricultural insurance, No Fund of natural
disasters

6. Result (3/7): The sourga status (1/4)
• Agand training: 18 to 45 old, No training
• Origin : South side (peanut basin and casamance)
and neighboring countries (Gambia and 2 Guinea)
• Stay : Seasonal (agricultural campaign) or Years
• Housing : Rented room in village
Huts built in the field
• Activities and workload: Ploughing, Weeding,
Planting, Irrigation, Harvesting, Monitoring,
Protection

7. Result (4/7): The sourga status (2/4)
Sourga as Permanently worker
• Ratio : 3 sourga for a parcel of 0.5 ha
• The remuneration of the sourga :
- in-kind : many forms of sharecropping
- Cash: average 35000 FCFA/month
• Payment period:
- End of the campaign
- Cash advance

8. Result (5/7): The sourga status (3/4)
Sourga Temporary workers for Points operations:
- Rice: Herbicide treatment: 2 S/ha/ for day
Caretaking of birds: 1 S/ha for a month
Harvesting and Threshing: 10 S/day/ha
- Onion: Transplanting: 25 S/ day
Harvest: 22 S/ ha/day
- Tomato: Transplanting: 14 S/ha/ day
Harvest: 12 S (5 passages needed)

9. Result (6/7): The sourga status (3/4)
Terms and conditions Activities Amounts
Per day and person The rice crop 2700 FCFA
Hoeing tomato
Transplanting (onion and tomato)
Operation point/ ha Transplanting (tomato and onion) 22000 F.CFA
Sarclo hoeing (tomato and onion) 25000 F.CFA
Sustainable operation/ha Weed control, irrigation, harvesting 145000 FCFA
Caretaking against birds 35000 FCFA/ha

10. Result (7/7): Sourga and employer
relations : Informal contract
- Concerns: Time of work , start date and the end of
the contract, Field activities, Producers
commitments
- Benefits for the Sourga: Period of high intensity of
labor / contract renegotiation after each campaign
- Problems for the sourga: Non-payment of the
Sourga, Eternal working force, No Social security
support
- Threatens: Availability of labor (student of Koranical
schools), Proximity of big agribusiness

11. Discussions/ conclusion/ perspectives
• Possibilty of production for any time of the year
• Informal farming system with one consumption unit
(family) and several unit of production: NECESSITY of
Recruiting Sourga for cropping
• Enermous employment potential : 588 000 sourga
98 000 Ha (without temporaries sourga)
• Salary amount: 35000 frs per month (without period
of high labour intensity)
• But informal and no guaranted phenomenon

12. Discussions/ conclusion/perspectives
• Medium term: improve employment with combinaison
of :
- Professionalization of farmers
- Formalization of farms
- Involvement of the Labor Inspectorate (fomalisation of
contract)
• Short term : allow sourga to defend their interests with
- Good organization
- and outreach
• Straight away : Good knowledge of the phenomenon

13. THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION