"Salt water from the Atlantic Ocean used to stop 150 kilometers from the mouth of The Gambia River. But now, with sea level rise, it intrudes 300 kilometers or more, triggering an agricultural crisis."
"BANTANG KILLING, Gambia — In this little village in West Africa, Ebrima Nyan is watching his farmland slowly wither away. When Nyan, 47, was a teenager, the village grew all the rice it consumed, in a field alongside the Gambia River. Now that field lies dry and empty, after the river’s brackish water intruded, rainfall flagged and the soil became too salty for crops.
By the early 2020s, the salt problem had moved farther inland from the river, to a field where the village grew onions, peppers, cabbage and eggplant, Nyan said. Seeds rotted, leaves fell off, plants shriveled. Bantang Killing’s farmers decided to abandon the field five years ago, though they still hold out hope it could produce again, if the soil was treated and salt kept out.
“Even though you plant here, it will grow so small—not even grow to harvesting” size, Nyan said one spring afternoon, waving his arm at the fenced-off enclosure."
