Growing vegetables in five major cities in the Democratic Republic of Congo is bringing new revenue to city dwellers, creating jobs and income for more than 70,000 people directly and indirectly, producing more than 25 kilos of vegetables a year per city dweller, and is improving the nutritional status of children. The Food and Agriculture Organization says that the project is a flagship model of how to help cities grow their own nutrients and micro-nutrients to keep pace with increased urban growth and improve nutrition and food security in poor countries.

In a June 10, 2011 news release, the FAO said the program has created a surplus with a market value of over $400 million and helped provide employment and income for 16,000 small-scale market gardeners linked in to the programme and to another 60,000 people who form the links in the horticulture chain from field to table. The 330,000 tons of vegetables now produced annually compares with 148,000 in 2005/2006, an increase of 122% in five years.

Less than 10% of the vegetables produced by the project are consumed by beneficiaries. The remainder, constituting more than 250 000 tons of produce, is sold in urban markets and supermarkets at up to $4 a kilo for tomatoes, sweet peppers and onions.

Around 11.5 million people live in the five cities concerned — Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, Mbanza-Ngungu, Kisangani and Likasi — out of the DRC’s total population of around 68 million. Lubumbashi, the second largest city in the DRC, has grown by 50% in just ten years to 1.5 million people, and thanks to the FAO project, local vegetable production has kept pace. Today market gardens all around the city produce around 60,000 tons of vegetables a year employing 7,800 small scale market gardeners.

As a result of the program, farmers have seen their incomes increase dramatically. On average, in Kinshasa and Lubumbash, annual income of each farmer has increased from around $500 in 2004 to $2,000 in 2010 and in Likasi, from $700 to $3,500. There have been similar increases in other cities.

Sebastien Mbuku, previously a school teacher in Kinshasa, told IRIN News that teaching only paid the bills for one week of the month. Unable to make ends meet, he turned to farming amaranth – a leaf vegetable - and spinach on 16 square metres of land. Mbuku said he can now afford to put meat on the table to feed his wife and five children, and cover school fees. “Working as a small vegetable grower has become like any other respected job,” Mbuku said.

The burgeoning incomes of small vegetable growers, who sometimes earn 200 or 300% profits, have made them more attractive to micro-finance institutions like the DRC-based FINCA, which supports small-scale credit loans, IRIN News reported. FINCA said 99.9% of the credit they have given to vegetable growers has been paid back in full and on time. "At first I doubted the ability of vegetable growers to pay back credit,” said Dick Mabiala, a credit agent at FINCA. "But I changed my mind when a lady growing fruit and vegetables took a $300 credit and came back to deposit $1,000 worth of profits into her account. The woman was only using two hectares of land for her enterprise."

Mabiala knew of vegetable growers who put themselves through college with the income they got farming. But after their studies, it was back to the land. "After ending university studies they tell you they cannot look for an office job just for the prestige of wearing a clean shirt and tie, when they could be making $600-800," he told IRIN.

Financed by Belgium, implemented by Rural Development ministry
The FAO urban horticulture program, which was financed by Belgium and has been implemented by the Ministry of Rural Development since 2000 with strong support from municipal committees, translates to around 28.6 kilos of vegetables a year per city-dweller. “This programme has increased per capita daily intake of micronutrients: different types of greens, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots and other vegetables, and as such is enormous help in the fight against malnutrition, especially amongst children and breast-feeding women in cities,” said Remi Nono-Womdim, FAO Agricultural Officer. 

FAO began its work in the DRC starting with a baseline study on the obstacles to urban and peri-urban horticulture. The study found the main ones were a lack of secure tenure over land, limited access to water, low yields due to poor quality seed and lack of appropriate production techniques and of cheap credit for growers. Other constraints included the limited number of trained personnel within the Ministry of Rural Development and the lack of post-harvest technologies and market facilities that forced growers to sell directly from their fields at lower prices. “It helped that many of the new city dwellers were rural immigrants who already had basic knowledge of crop production,” said Nono-Womdim. There were also sizeable areas of fertile land available, especially around Lubumbashi.

The first thing FAO did was to put in place institutional structures to link FAO, government and local authorities with horticulturists and farmers’ groups. The UN agency has also supplied new varieties and also invested in repairing irrigation infrastructure and flood control works which had a side benefit of providing safe and clean water for the communities. To ensure the safety and quality of produce for the consumer, FAO introduced Integrated Production and Protection Management, which helps reduce the need to rely on synthetic pesticides.

There is still more work to do and the DRC’s National Service for Urban and Peri-urban Horticulture is preparing to take up the challenges ahead. “The great thing is we have shown this goal can be reached, what we need to do now is scale-up production in the DRC and in other parts of Africa,” said Nono-Womdim.

This story was prepared from an FAO media release issued in Rome June 10, 2011 entitled  Urban horticulture in DRC reaps $400 mln for small growers / City malnutrition drops as more affordable fruit and vegetables available, and an IRIN News story entitled  DRC: Urban farming takes root that was datelined Kinshasa June 28, 2011. For more about the impact of this program, see DR Congo perfects the horticultural metropolis, written by T. Paul Cox and published by the New Agriculturist in November 2011.