In Cote d’Ivoire, women have for years organized in cooperatives to produce and sell the Attieke, the West African country’s national dish.

Now, Attieke, a couscous, plays an important role for food security as the country struggles to get out of a decade of political turmoil.

Attiekedrom: The making of a National Dish from bagassy2000 on Vimeo.

Below are excerpts from Madeleine’s photoblog, which she kept while reporting in Dakar.

This land is who’s land?

March 20

Forty-year-old Ibrahima Diallo has been farming in Patte D’Oie for half his life. He concedes, though, that he doesn’t invest in his land as much as he could because of the looming fear that the government will take away his fields, as it did to those of neighboring farmers to construct a freeway. “I cannot tell you when, but I have a strong feeling that sooner or later this area is going to disappear,” Diallo said.

Patte d’oie | March 14

Patte d’oie means crow’s foot in French. It also has a secondary meaning: fork in the road. That’s a fitting name for the neighborhood of the last of the urban farmers of Dakar, cultivating produce on the scarce acres remaining of a green valley that once covered hundreds. Today you can stand on one edge of the farmland in front of a three story home with a garage, and look over plots of strawberries, lettuce, mint and yams, to rush hour traffic on the highway across the way.

Papa Gueye | March 13

Papa Gueye, 60-year old farmer and leader of the local farmers association of Kayar, a region about 40km northeast of Dakar.

Farmland turned housing | March 13

What you see are two unfinished houses and arid land blanketed with litter and limbs of plants long since dead. Just a few years ago, this was a green field of Irish potatoes, groundnuts and vegetables. Papa Gueye’s three acres were among the hundred acres taken by the local mayor in 2000 to sell to housing developers. Fortunately for Papa Gueye he had more land to continue producing, but what’s left is rapidly diminishing. Just this February, local authorities came to the area again to identify what land could be transformed into valuable housing next.

The fellowships will each total $36,000, including round trip airfare, professional stipends, and rent while in Berkeley.

The selected fellows will join the School’s Visiting International Scholars Program and participate in a new journalism training initiative aimed to provide high quality coverage of agricultural development issues in Africa for dissemination in U.S., African, and international media. The initiative will also offer dedicated funding for both domestic U.S. and Africa travel for research and reporting work.

Requirements:

Selected fellows must bring at least five years experience in journalism in sub-Saharan Africa, in any medium including print newspaper, magazine, television, radio, documentary, or new media format such as blogging, podcasting, and other online publishing.

Applicants also must demonstrate a proven track record of commitment to the truth-seeking craft, and a willingness to effectively investigate the problems of hunger on the continent with an aim to publish or broadcast stories about these topics and bring them to light in compelling form for audiences in Africa and around the world. A B.A. degree, at minimum, is strongly desired, along with experience and knowledge about agricultural issues in the applicant’s native country.

Selected African fellows will enroll with other Visiting Scholars in background courses at Berkeley examining the global food crisis starting in late August 2010, while also contributing their knowledge about Africa and journalism to their U.S. and international peers.

Please submit applications via the online form.

To access the form, use the password:

africa2010

The form provides spaces to include your resume, a one-page cover letter containing a statement of interest, and links to three examples of work.

For questions, contact africa@journalism.berkeley.edu

Deadline for applications: Monday, March 29, 2010

This opportunity is part of a two-year grant provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley.