Some spent years working in Italy. Others dreamed of getting to Europe but never even made it as far as Libya.

Today, they are among a small number of Senegalese who have turned away from the allure of migration and instead are part of a new generation of farmers at home.

Pape Samba Diane, 45, spent five years working in agriculture and in a factory in Italy's Brescia region -- the dream of thousands of fellow Senegalese, many of whom risk the dangerous journey through the Sahara for a place on a rickety boat across the Mediterranean.

As he laboured on the vineyards, Diane could not help but fail to notice that the people making most of the money were not the workers, but the farmers. That led him to ponder about the potential to do the same back home.