ABSTRACT
Despite the government’;s efforts to diversify, nationalize, and modernize the economy; the expansion of fishing and tourism; and large inflows of foreign aid, real per capita income has in fact declined since independence. In Sahelian Senegal, the rural masses struggle for survival; in Maritime Senegal, the urban masses battie for a better position within a relatively modern economy. Sahelian Senegal’;s rural economy is based primarily on the peanut, which takes up more than 40 percent of the land under cultivation. This figure has declined as peasants have begun to devote more land to food crops. Horses also play an important role in the rural economy, serving as draft animals in the peanut basin and providing rural transportation. The poultry population has also increased dramatically from 900,000 chickens in 1960 to more than 13 million in the early 1990s.
