The Dogon, an ancient ethnic group, have lived in the harsh, awe-inspiring environment of the Bandiagarà escarpment for thousands of years. The Dogon have dug their houses out of the rock and built low mud huts along the escarpment, a chain of red sandstone cliffs running from north to south across the Mali plain between Mopti and Timbuktu. 

The fields are located by the barrages, small dams built in the 1980s to provide more water and increase the production of shallots, the only product sold in any quantity. Sold fresh and dried, Dogon shallots are renowned throughout Mali for the unique sweetness and flavor they acquire from the rocky land.

Drying can be carried out using a traditional method that involves grinding the shallots in a stone mortar, shaping the resulting paste into balls and drying them in the sun. More modern methods (introduced by various NGOs, particularly Re.Te from Piedmont), involve cutting the shallots into thin slices and drying them on racks in the sun for one or two weeks.

Traditional food gardens have fruit trees (mango, orange, shea), an area for grains (rice, corn, millet, fonio) and peanuts, and another for vegetables and legumes. The women process the flowers, fruit and leaves of each plant (whether wild like baobab, or cultivated) into seasonings called somè in the Dogon language.

The Dogon Somè Presidium includes several products: kamà (ground dried sorrel leaves), pourkamà (the ground dried leaves of nerè, a local tree), djabà pounan (a powder obtained by grinding dried shallots and slightly toasting them in peanut oil), gangadjou pouna (dried okra powder), oroupounnà (baobab leaf powder) and wangue-somè (ground local chili, garlic and salt). These seasonings are the base of Dogon cuisine, used in sauces and soups and on vegetables or meat.