In the commune of Niakhar, in Senegal’s groundnut basin, agricultural landscapes face the challenge of sustaining food production while maintaining soil health, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. The report Towards assessment of the performances of multifunctional agroecology landscapes, published in February 2026, explores a methodology for assessing these dimensions together at landscape scale. Developed by Adrien Coquereau, Mohamadou Dieye, Camille Jahel and Marc Piraux, the work applies an existing indicator framework to a West African context, where the links between agroecological landscape management and food security remain insufficiently assessed.

Using a land use and land cover map derived from Dynamic World and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, the researchers analysed 711 agricultural landscape units. Eight agroecology indicators and four food and nutrition security indicators were simulated, covering nutrient recycling, soil health, biodiversity, economic diversification, food self-sufficiency, agricultural income, cooking energy and nutritional diversity. The preliminary results reveal contrasting spatial patterns: cropland-dominated areas in the northwest generally perform better for food availability and agricultural income, while agro-pastoral mosaics in the southeast score higher for nutrient cycling, biodiversity and soil health. Only 6.3 percent of sampled landscapes achieve high performance across both agroecology and food security indicators, highlighting potential trade-offs between agricultural intensification and ecological multifunctionality.

The findings remain exploratory: the models are not yet calibrated or validated, and their assumptions do not account fully for socioeconomic constraints or actual farming conditions. The report identifies priorities for further data collection and joint work with local stakeholders to contextualize indicators and inform landscape planning.