Leaving Senegal: A Hard Goodbye to a Hard Lesson

29 May

I've sold the farm in Senegal. Not because it failed. It thrived. We built a successful operation with regenerative methods, local employment, and infrastructure that improved lives. We did everything we said we would. And still, we left. Not out of fatigue or mismanagement, but fear. A quiet, growing fear that success was no longer welcome.

We began ten years ago with a bold but sincere goal: to grow food, opportunity, and dignity. We cleared barren land and turned it fertile. We introduced soil regeneration, crop rotation, and solar irrigation. We built a school for workers' children, a small hospital for their families, and a housing development so they could live near their livelihoods. We paid fair wages. We offered healthcare. We didn't just build a farm. We built a future.

And then we watched that future erode.

I've seen this story before. My parents were among those expelled from Uganda by Idi Amin in 1972. They were white British citizens, and their businesses — factories, shopping malls, and homes — were seized overnight. Everything was confiscated, and they left with almost nothing. Uganda's economy collapsed. The same happened in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s. Over 4,000 white-owned farms were seized during the so-called land reform [1]. What followed was not justice but famine. Food production collapsed, inflation soared, and within a few years, the same government that had encouraged the seizures was begging white farmers to return [2].

South Africa has flirted with the same dangerous game. Politicians still campaign on promises of land expropriation without compensation [3]. The underlying message is clear: it doesn't matter how much you've built, if you're white, your land can be taken. It's populist theatre masquerading as justice, and it costs lives.

Senegal seemed different. At first.

We followed every regulation. We partnered with local cooperatives. We paid bribes when we had to, reported what we could, and endured the bureaucratic chaos. It was never easy, but it felt worth it. The community thrived. Workers told us they'd never imagined living somewhere with running water and a medical clinic. Children who had never attended school were reading and writing. Crops were healthy. Our soil quality metrics improved year on year. We used composting, drip irrigation, and agroforestry. It worked.

Until it didn't.

The change began subtly. Surprise inspections. Complaints that didn't make sense. A rejected licence renewal. Then came the rumours — that we were hoarding profit, that we were taking land from locals, that we were foreign parasites. None of it was true. But it didn't need to be. The narrative took root, and the state let it grow.

Soon we faced arbitrary fines. Then threats. One of our storage facilities was raided. Some of our staff were harassed. A trusted local partner warned us: “You're a target now.” By then, several other mid-sized agricultural operations had already folded under similar pressure. All foreign-run. All too successful for their own good [4].

We weren’t naïve. We'd seen how development can breed jealousy when it isn’t properly protected. But the speed with which the climate turned hostile was chilling. According to the World Bank’s 2020 report, Senegal ranks 123rd globally for ease of doing business. Property rights are poorly enforced, and foreign investors are often treated with suspicion, especially once they show results [5]. Transparency International ranks Senegal 72nd on the Corruption Perceptions Index [6]. That figure hides more than it reveals.

The irony is that countries like China and Russia operate without these issues. Their investors come with diplomatic protection, armed security, and state backing. If someone touches their assets, there are consequences. We came with a Catholic work ethic and good intentions. We offered equity. We employed hundreds. We built not for extraction but for permanence. But goodwill isn't bulletproof. And in Senegal, it isn't enough.

Over $1.2 trillion in aid has flowed into Africa since the 1960s [7]. But as economist Dambisa Moyo has argued, aid often enables corruption rather than reduces poverty [8]. The African Union estimates that $150 billion is lost every year to corruption, fraud, and tax evasion [9]. The problem isn't lack of money. It's where the money goes — and who it threatens when it stays in the right hands.

The school we built educated over 300 children. The hospital treated thousands, often for free. The houses we constructed offered running water, electricity, and proper roofs to people who'd lived in tin shacks. We did all of this with our own capital. Not NGO grants. Not publicity stunts. Just quiet, steady investment. And now, it's gone.

Other countries want what Senegal rejected. We still have farms in Trinidad, Florida, the UK, and Colombia. We're beginning a new project in Saudi Arabia focused on water-efficient vertical farming. We're reinvesting the Senegal profits into El Salvador, where the government has actively welcomed sustainable agriculture and investor partnership. They want jobs, training, and infrastructure. They’re not looking to take a slice once the work is done.

Africa, by contrast, often wants a handout. Not help. Not partnership. A handout. And when help arrives in a form that demands shared responsibility, it’s resented. There’s a deep cultural wound here, one that confuses empowerment with exploitation. It's politically easier to blame the white farmer than to question the corrupt official. It’s easier to rewrite the past than to invest in the present.

Criticising African governance doesn’t make you a racist. It makes you honest. There's nothing progressive about letting incompetence or corruption slide because of historical guilt. That’s not compassion. That’s cowardice. It infantilises entire nations and cripples genuine progress.

I believe in dignity. I believe in hard work, shared ownership, and leaving a place better than you found it. That’s what we tried to do. But when the land you cultivate turns against you — not in drought, but in spite — the decision makes itself.

It breaks my heart to think of the children who will no longer attend that school. Or the woman I met in our clinic who said it was the first time a doctor had ever spoken to her like she mattered. But I’ve learnt the hard way that it’s not always your job to stay where you’re not wanted.

I have six nephews and two nieces. I worry about the world they’re entering. Not because I think they’re fragile, but because I know they’ll be told to apologise for things they haven’t done. They’ll be treated with suspicion because they’re white, and ambitious. And if they try to build something — a business, a dream, a family — someone might come along and say, “That’s not yours anymore.” I want better for them.

It’s not racist to say that Africa has problems. Every continent does. But the refusal to name them, to hold leaders accountable, or to demand basic governance — that’s what keeps poverty alive. It’s not capitalism that keeps Africa down. It’s kleptocracy. It’s cowardice. It’s this misguided belief that good intentions must always yield to bitter memory.

Senegal could have been a long-term home. It had the land, the labour, and the climate. But it lacked one essential thing: the will to protect what works.

So we left.

We’ll build somewhere else. And we’ll keep building, because it’s who we are. But we’ll also remember. Not out of resentment. Out of realism.

You can’t teach people to fish when they only care about stealing your boat.

Leaving Senegal: A Hard Goodbye to a Hard Lesson

Further Reading and Resources

We Wouldn’t Laugh If It Were a Girl