Adaptation of Food Production to Drought in the Senegal River Basin

Abstract

An examination of the Senegal River Basin illustrates the linkages between trade policy, adaptation to a possible change in the climate and the technological biases of the adaptation. The countries that share the basin, Senegal, Mauritania and Mali have formed the Tri-nation River Basin Development Authority and are attempting to execute a shift to irrigated rice production which stresses large state managed rice plantations and the regularization of river flows to permit double cropping. The adaptation of rice production to declining streamflows in Senegal is discussed.