At 30 years old, Abdoulaye Diallo chose to pursue agriculture after graduating from high school. He currently farms 5 hectares (ha) in the Anambé basin in Kolda region of Senegal. After experimenting with the yield-doubling Urea Deep Placement (UDP) technology through the Feed the Future Senegal Dundël Suuf project, what was once a dream to Diallo is becoming a reality.
It is why I have devoted myself to agriculture.
After graduating from high school in 2015, Diallo was not drawn to higher education as much as he was to agriculture: “I saw where agriculture has taken two great local rice producers who never went to school. And that’s very inspiring. I thought why not do what they did – or even surpass them.”
On a 1.25 ha plot, Diallo has divided the field into two equal sections. One part is dedicated to UDP, a climate-smart fertilizer technology, while the second part is dedicated to traditional fertilizer application. On the traditional plot, he sowed 80 kg of rice seed, used 100 kg of diammonium phosphate (DAP) fertilizer, and 100 kg of urea, compared with 80 kg of seed in the UDP plot, with a 50-kg topdressing of granulated fertilizer.
“Once the rice had matured, I realized a yield of 6.5 metric tons per hectare for the UDP plot, compared with 3 metric tons per hectare for the traditional practice plot,’’ says Diallo. “The decision to apply UDP to the rest of my field is an easy one to make.”
Thanks to UDP, my dreams have become a reality.
