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The Global Profile
Thierno Agne left behind studying law to grow strawberries, a shocking move in Senegal, where farming is considered work for the old, poor and uneducated. His success is making the profession “sexy.”
April 20, 2025, 12:01 a.m. ET
When Thierno Agne was a student casting about for a lucrative career, he told his agriculture professor he was considering growing strawberries in Senegal.
“You will fail,” he remembered the professor warning.
He didn’t listen, and now, at 36, Mr. Agne runs one of the biggest strawberry farms in the country.
He had not even wanted to be a farmer. He had started his higher education by studying law. But then, he shocked his family by switching to agriculture when he realized there were already more law graduates in Senegal than there were jobs available.
Still, despite the glut of legal graduates, his shift in focus was an unusual move for an ambitious young man in a country where farming is seen as a job for old, uneducated or poor people.
Mr. Agne has shown, however, that farming can be a profession that requires education, commands as much respect and remuneration as a lawyer, and demands as much innovation as any high-tech entrepreneur is expected to show.
On a recent morning at his farm just outside Dakar, the capital, Mr. Agne quietly trod the rows of vibrant strawberry plants, checking how his delicate crop was doing.
