DR Congo: 297 Farming Households In Kwilu To Learn Agro Ecological Practices In The Context Of SDGs

By Badylon Kawanda Bakiman

As part of the implementation of its program to promote ecological agriculture for the improvement of the lives of farming communities, AIPD (Development Support Network For Rural Farmers), a platform of more than 50 farmers' organizations working in Kwilu province in the southwestern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), drew the attention of 297 farming households by teaching them agro-ecological practices while also presenting the benefits of these practices in the context of climate change and the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This was done during a major awareness campaign organized and held from October 2022 to March 2023 in 10 villages in the project's intervention zone.

The 10 villages targeted are the following: Banda-papi, Inkasambu, Imolo, Impateku, Double-bridges, Banda-Yansi, Banda-Butindi, Lukamba, Matende, Inkasambu 2. They are all located on the Lukamba axis, more than 20 kilometers from Kikwit, the ecomico-political city of Kwilu province.

"Agricultural households are families that practice only agriculture and live only from field work. These families specialize in this area. In our target villages, there are other families who trade in various products and live from these activities. They are not agricultural households," explains Albert Wunda, executive secretary of AIPD.

The objective of this sensitization mission, which took the AIPD team to these different villages, was to show the farmers not only the existing agroecological practices, but also to encourage these communities to implement them in order to improve the soil, the environment, the adaptation to climate change... for a better agricultural production.

According to Mboma Boa, facilitator in charge of the AIPD Lukamba axis, the association and rotation of crops are practices already applied by several households.

AIPD has encouraged the targeted households to mulch, ridge according to the contour line, improve fallows and compost.

"Our concern is to also enlighten these households on the practice and merits of composting, burying wild grass or green manure, mulching and ridging. This delicate work was done to the great satisfaction of our members. We are delighted because our members are now equipped with knowledge in this area, which will enable them to increase their production," he said.

"We also taught them how to reduce erosion and tillage; increase soil fertility; increase functional biodiversity; preserve water resources; promote genetic diversity; increase the autonomy of the herd; enhance co-products and adapt to climate change," he said.

For his part, Mr. Manginda Delphin, head of the Lukamba sector, said he was satisfied with this awareness campaign.

"Some existing agricultural practices were poorly understood and poorly applied in their environment. Others were not known by our farmers. This campaign is timely because it gives us the light to do better. We thank the AIPD for this initiative," he said.

As for Mrs. Kasay Martine, from Inkasambu village, she hopes that these kinds of activities will be held regularly for a good future of the farming households in this part of the country.

"Agro-ecology is a way of designing production systems that rely on the functionalities offered by ecosystems. It amplifies them while aiming to reduce the pressures on the environment (e.g., reducing greenhouse gas emissions, limiting the use of pesticides) and to preserve natural resources. It is a question of using nature as much as possible as a production factor while maintaining its capacity for renewal," explain the scientists.