Economy
This region of Seneral is destitute, and living conditions are difficult. The population are mainly engaged in ranching. The main crops cultivated are millet, cowpeas, peanuts, watermelons and squash and Acacia gum.
The natural grasslands of the desert have undergone change. Until the mid 1950s the region "was visited by men and livestock only during the rainy season and at the very beginning of the dry season (July to November)." In 1953, J. G. Adam noted that the "groundnut cultivation has transformed the natural vegetation on sandy soils, to note, even at a distance from the water points, a climax, subclimax vegetation which has not been disrupted by cultivation, and hardly changed by grazing, since this has occurred only, until recent years, during the four summer months, where the vegetation is dense and close to standing water." From the mid 1950s, boreholes were drilled and began to provide water to areas of the desert, which enabled pastureland to be used by the farmers all year round. By 1955, fifty wells were reported along the main trek routes to be providing water. Under better conditions, the population of livestock in the desert increased; by the 1990s, it supported livestock herding, cited as "a continuous extension of the desert steppe into the savanna" but one which was "not rich enough to attract herders from the north of the river." Between 1969 and 1972, the "Study of Natural Pastureland in Northern Senegal" was conducted, assessing the borehole development in the desert and found that the boreholes were still on on average 25-30 km apart, which meant that exploitation of land was generally restricted to a 5 km radius of them. Spate irrigation has since developed in the region, and temporary ponds may cover an area of several hectares during the wet season from July to October.
Read more about this topic: Ferio Desert
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The aim of the laborer should be, not to get his living, to get “a good job,” but to perform well a certain work; and, even in a pecuniary sense, it would be economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific, or even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical terms.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)