Dairy policy in Senegal, subject to technological and political challenges

International audienceOver the last 15 years, Food Policies implemented within the livestock sector have pointed out tensions between the sharply increasing global demand for animal products, the environmental and health issues due to the production's intensification, and the competition for land between human food and animal feed. In Senegal, the State and some dairy companies are claiming for an intensification of the dairy production, focused on technical stakes, which does not match the logics of the pastoralists who stand for the multi-functionality of their systems; moreover this new industry is exposed to the fierce competition of imported powder milk. A new industrial model is spreading. This case study questions a new growing pattern of public action in poor countries, where joint firms, foundations and NGOs assert acting to link profit with the needs of the poor, and are often presented as local development actors. Its future as new standard of public action for food security and food policy is questioned