For those who claim to be great warriors, a visit to Senegal could convince them to shift their action of butchering innocents to conducting a real “war” on poverty, hunger and disease.
The Chinese knew some of this about 3500 years ago when they invented fish farming; the followers of Louis Pasteur (Jamot, Nicolle, etc.) revived this approach 150 years ago to fight malaria and sleeping sickness. Christian Lévêque, a top French environmental scientist (not a Malthusian), calls this approach “co-construction”: man and nature improving together, in a harmonious way, their common environment for future expansion.
Today, Senegal is taking the lead. Enthusiastic reports are arriving from ongoing experiments conducted by Senegalese farmers and scientists. Still small, but very promising. 40 farmers close to Dakar, as part of an experiment, have introduced fish into rice paddies. The benefits are beyond belief:
- The poor farmers increase their income by the production and sale of fish;
- The excrement of the first type of fish introduced (Nile Tilapia), as a natural fertilizer, increases crop yields by 25%, resulting in a net benefit for each household of at least $380 per year.
- The second type of fish introduced (Heterotis Niloticus) eats small freshwater snails, which are the intermediate hosts of the parasite responsible for bilharzia (or schistosomiasis), an acute and chronic parasitic disease caused by worms, schistosomes, which contaminate the water.
The transmission of this disease, according to the WHO, has been recorded in 79 countries in mostly tropical and subtropical regions. It is easily treated, but the infection often goes unnoticed at first, and intestinal or urogenital complications often only manifest themselves several years later, leading to damage to certain organs, or even, in some cases, to death. Children—particularly vulnerable to infection—who become infected may frequently miss school, or adults may find themselves unable to work for long periods, exacerbating the cycle of poverty.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimated in 2024 that at least 253.7 million people needed preventive treatment for schistosomiasis. The WHO estimates that at least 93.6% of those who need such treatment currently live in Africa. The introduction of specific species of fish can greatly help solve the problem. The idea is not to simply stay in Senegal; it is that once the expected results are confirmed, this can be implemented in many African countries.
