The Sudano Sahel is a region about 600Km wide stretching from Mauritania by the Atlantic Ocean to Eritrea and Somalia by the Indian Ocean. Its borders are defined by the 300-800 mm rain isohyets. This region is home to the poorest people of the world.

Present subsistence rain-fed agricultural system is destructive to the environment and a major perpetuator of poverty.

The New Sahel is a program devised by ICRISAT to transform current agricultural system into a productive, sustainable and market oriented system thus helping the Sahelian population to exit out of the current vicious cycle of poverty and land degradation.

The program is based on development of both new rain-fed and of irrigated systems and on the introduction of a wide range of income generating-export oriented crops.

The Sahelian Eco-Farm (SEF) is an integrated rain-fed system that gives solutions to most of the constraints of the current rain-fed system. The SEF and the multitude of new crops that are produced in it are still under development. It is estimated that the SEF with its components will increase profits per hectare by a factor of ten as compared with the present millet and sorghum based system.

The African Market Garden (AMG) is a cost-effective, integrated low-pressure drip irrigated system that should serve as a platform for a highly profitable, export oriented horticulture industry. The AMG comes with a package of proper management practices, quality vegetable varieties adapted to the region and new fruit tree species and varieties. The AMG is now at the stage of mass dissemination in the region.