- The Plate
Can Congolese Agriculture Fight Future Famines?
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is about the size of Western Europe, and only a fraction of its arable land is being used.
Solange, a 34-year-old mother, feeds her six children by selling peanuts in the streets of Goma, in the war-ravaged eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. She travels one-and-a-half hours each way from her rural village in the outskirts of the city, hoping that she’ll go back home with an empty basket that night.
On many days, Solange returns back home with her basket nowhere near empty. But on a good day, she says she can earn a few dollars.
“We are lucky to have some small land around our house where we can grow these peanuts to sell,” she explains. “We grow some maize and cassava as well, but they’re for us to eat.”
Solange is one of the millions of small-scale farmers