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Does West Africa have “modern” dairy farmers who conform to the agricultural models of the Western countries and are able, according to the modern rhetorical discourse, to face the competition of imported powdered milk? It is necessary to understand who the West African dairy farmers are, in order to answer this question. Our analysis, based on three typologies established for the periphery of cities in Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali, shows a wide variety of situations. However, safe production strategy dominates in an environment where relatively poor family farms favor the cultivation of cereals or livestock. Milk is not an economic priority in the current production system. Besides, Western-type dairy producers do not yet exist in West Africa.