When Elaji Niass saw his little sister grow thin, her eyes yellow and belly distended, he knew she didn’t have long to live. The peanut farmer’s sister-in-law had died two years earlier showing similar symptoms. His neighbor too. In fact, virtually everyone in Taïba Niassène, his village in Senegal, knows someone who’s died of the same illness: liver cancer.
The culprit, doctors told them, was peanuts — something few in the area wanted to believe. The legume is the backbone of the economy, grown on 40% of Senegal’s farmland, and the foundation of almost every dish they eat. “Peanuts are our life,” Niass says. “But I can’t deny it now — the disease is too widespread.”