It certainly seems like a good gesture, but I have to wonder where this land (possibly an entire region) would come from.  That is, is there really that much un-owned fertile land in Senegal?  Would the government buy the land from existing land-owners, and would the land-owners have a right to refuse?  I have no idea how it works when a modern country decides to offer land to people (as opposed to back in the old days of the US, when you could take whatever land you wanted provided the only occupants were American Indians).  I kind of wish this article would answer those questions for me.