(Joal-Fadiouth) Behind the fishing town of Joal-Fadiouth 120 km south of Dakar, the salty waters bordered by mangroves abound with oysters, a source of protein food still poorly exploited but promising new income.
Posted at 8:00 a.m.
Bintou Sonko, in her fifties, is one of the many women who support entire families by harvesting marine molluscs.
“It’s exhausting work that requires a lot of resources. Unfortunately we don’t have any”, she laments, sitting in the water in front of a basin of “crassostrea gasar”, the local variety present in its natural state on the roots of mangrove trees.
In these times of food insecurity and maritime overfishing, Senegal dreams of a modern, productive, sustainable oyster farming.
But the largely informal activity, with a few thousand jobs, 90% of which are women, remains centered on traditional picking.
In 2017, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), only 400 tonnes of Senegalese production came from oyster beds; 15,600 tonnes came from the mangroves of the Sine-Saloum delta, the Petite-Côte south of Dakar or Casamance.
By way of comparison, China, the world’s largest producer, harvests 3.5 million tonnes per year, according to the French Research Institute for the Exploitation of the Sea (Ifremer).
In Senegal, the oyster is often dried and then cooked over a wood fire. Its salty and smoky taste, crisp on the outside and tender on the inside, makes it popular in local markets. It is also sold boiled.
“Towards Breeding”
“The production of oysters is below potential”, recognizes Boubacar Banda Diop, in charge of oyster farming at the Ministry of Fisheries, affirming that the State has established in recent years “a development plan”, in particular to improve the sanitary conditions of production.
It is important to set up monitoring of water quality because production areas “are subject to chemical, biological, microbiological and microalgae contamination,” he explains.
At the same time, several cooperation programs have focused on the Senegalese oyster.
FISH4ACP, launched in 2021 by the FAO with European funding, began by taking stock of the activity to develop a “National Strategy” over 10 years (2021-2031). The objectives: to improve sanitary conditions, production techniques, move “towards breeding”.
“La Cabane penchée”, a small farm in La Somone (south), has already adhered to these principles for three years.
“We have doubled our production capacity compared to last year, going from three to six tonnes per year,” Khadim Tine, the boss of the company which produces oysters in the park, told AFP.
But such feats are not self-evident.
For Mamadou Bakhoum, president of the Intervillage Association of Dassilamé Serere (south), “the resource (in oysters) is at a worrying level […] The salinity is too high in places,” he explains, citing global warming as one of the causes of this situation.
Question of means
However, Mr. Bakhoum believes that “provided people get serious about it, the avenues for developing oyster farming are colossal”.
Another challenge is to reconcile increased productivity and preservation of the mangrove. The mangrove, a salt-tolerant ecosystem characteristic of tropical coasts, is deteriorating in Senegal as elsewhere under the effect of the overexploitation of its resources, development, aquaculture and rising waters. Yet it plays an important role as a barrier against erosion and flooding, and as a carbon sink.
Abdou Karim Sall, president of the Marine Protected Area of Joal-Fadiouth, helps the oyster pickers to put up “garlands”. According to this process, the spat grow on wires stretched between eucalyptus branches supported by stakes planted in the mud. Harvesters no longer pick oysters off the roots.
“This not only allows the mangroves to be left alone and the women […] make more money,” he explains.
But garlands and stakes are not available to everyone in this poor region.
Increasing income also requires increased production of fresh oysters, which reach a wealthy tourist clientele.
According to professionals in the sector, a dozen fresh oysters from Senegal sell for between 4,500 and 6,000 FCFA (6.80 and 9.10 euros), and a kilo of cooked ones, which requires at least three basins of 15 dozen, sells for from 4000 to 6000 FCFA (6.10 to 9.10 euros).
However, the infrastructure for storing and transporting fresh oysters is rare.
The modernization of Senegalese oyster farming “depends above all on financial and technical means”, says Mr. Diop, at the Ministry of Fisheries.