Why Are Farmers in Senegal Creating Gardens That Look Like Crop Circles?

Original Story Published by: Jessica Leigh Hester, www.atlasobscura.com
Photo Source: Rueters/Zohara Bensemra

(Above) An aerial view of a newly built tolou keur garden in Boki Diawe, within the Great Green Wall area, in Matam region, Senegal

FROM THE AIR, THE NEW garden in the town of Boki Diawe, in northeast Senegal, looks like an eye: wide open, unblinking, and flanked by a smattering of divots dug in the surrounding soil, dark like freckles across a nose. The ground is still sandy brown, but nearby, there is a fringe of bright green.

If all goes according to plan, this garden will soon look similarly lush. The circular garden—known locally as a tolou keur—has recently been planted with papayas, cashews, lemons, and more. One of the inner curving rows is dedicated to medicinal plants, while the outer row has been lined with baobabs and Khaya senegalensis, whose wood is also known as African mahogany.

The garden is the latest iteration of the project known as The Great Green Wall, first envisioned as a viridescent belt squiggling thousands of miles across the Sahel region, from Senegal to Djibouti. Launched in 2007 by the African Union with backing from the European Union, World Bank, and the United Nations, the project was initially meant to help stave off desertification by stymying the Sahara as it wandered south.