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             DRC Farmers, Facing Theft, Switch to Less Edible Crops

   by Nick Long

   Aid workers are predicting another year of insecurity and forced
   displacement for rural people in the east of the Democratic Republic of
   Congo.  They say that to cope with marauding armed groups, farmers are
   switching to crops that are less likely to be stolen.
   The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization conducts regular
   surveys in eastern DRC and has found in the past year that many farmers
   have been switching to crops they did not grow previously.
   The FAO attributes this change to increased insecurity. Guillaume
   Kahomboshi is a food security expert with the FAO in Goma.
   He says the peasants are struck by the way that wars here always seem
   to break out at harvest time.  They are thinking the wars may just be
   an excuse to steal their crops, he adds.
   To try to reduce the risk of their harvest being stolen many peasants
   are switching to other crops, according to Kahomboshi.
   For example, he says, in Rutshuru, a territory near Uganda that is
   mostly controlled by armed groups, most of the peasants are starting to
   grow soya.
   Kahomboshi suggests this is because soya is unpalatable until it has
   been dried and milled, and the armed groups prefer food that is ready
   to eat.
   In addition, there is good demand for soya in Uganda, where it is
   milled and then used as an ingredient in biscuits and other processed
   foods.
   Kahomboshi tells VOA that farmers in Masisi, another war-stricken
   territory west of Rutshuru, are switching to growing cassava, another
   crop which he says is less vulnerable to theft by armed groups.
   Agronomist Franck Muke at Goma University agrees with Kahomboshi that
   soya is less likely to be stolen but he's not so sure about cassava,
   known as manioc in Congo.
   He says cassava is more of a risk because it is a staple food, and he
   has noticed that although cassava is not easy to pilfer, because it has
   to be uprooted and then dried and milled, it is often quickly pillaged.
   However, the non-governmental organization Concern, which did a survey
   of villages affected by ethnic conflict in Masisi, reported less theft
   of cassava than of other crops.
   Among the hundreds of thousands facing the problem of crop theft in
   eastern Congo are the inhabitants of a camp for displaced people at the
   town of Kitchanga.
   Several camp residents who spoke to VOA had recently come from the
   nearby village of Kahemba.  They had left, they said, because of a tax
   imposed by an armed group of one and a half dollars a month.  Several
   people said they were unable to pay this tax, and if they did not pay
   it, they risked being killed.
   Some people in the displaced camp said they go back to Kahemba from
   time to time to try to look after their crops.
   One farmer, Germain Ngowa, suggested they could guard their crops
   better if they organized their own patrols.
   We could share the task of guarding the crops, he says, by forming a
   union, and for example women could do this during the day and the men
   could do it at night.  He acknowledged that they would have no defense
   against armed marauders, but seemed to think this could still help
   prevent theft.
   Kahemba is not deserted, but the people who have stayed there have to
   support the militias, either through the monthly tax and often by
   enrolling their young men.
   The sad reality is that years of war and ethnic conflict in parts of
   eastern Congo have divided communities against themselves, so that
   villagers' crops are as likely to be stolen by their neighbors as by
   the armed groups.
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/drc-farmers-crop-theft-less-edible-fo
   ods/1669204.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/drc-farmers-crop-theft-less-edible-foods/1669204.html