Local Projects

Congo Development Initiative

Working with a local Congolese farming cooperative, Coopérative pour la Promotion de la Culture du Maïs (COOPROMA), CADS is assisting in improving food security and incomes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ruzizi Valley. By sharing technology and research on agriculture we are creating new opportunities in agricultural and associated sectors.

Persistent conflict in North and South Kivu provinces has led to sharp declines in agricultural output in the Ruzizi Valley. As a result, malnutrition is now a significant issue in an area once known as the ‘rice-bowl of the Congo.’ CADS is working to reverse these trends.

Since 1998, the war’s impact on malnutrition and disease has lead to over 5.4 million avoidable deaths in eastern Congo, with an additional 45,000 lives claimed every month – an estimated 1,500 dying every day from malnutrition and related illnesses. For more information on the ongoing conflict in eastern Congo, as well as the role of consumer electronics and minerals in fueling the war, please visit the Conflict Minerals page.

At CADS, we are committed to improving the lives of people living in the Congo’s Ruzizi Valley and elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. To achieve these goals, we are supporting agricultural and income-generating projects that will provide the foundations for long-term development.

Agricultural Development

CADS is working to increase and improve agricultural production in the Congo’s fertile Ruzizi Valley in order to reduce malnutrition and food insecurity, and to provide incomes to local farmers by selling their produce in local and regional markets.

The ongoing war in eastern Congo has substantially reduced the local production and availability of food, as vicious rebels, militia, neighbouring armies and the Congo’s own military have often made it too dangerous for locals to farm, resulting in widespread malnutrition.

While peace has returned to the Congo’s Ruzizi Valley, much of the fertile volcanic soil in this vast area remains fallow and underused. Farmers are often unable to access basic agricultural inputs, limiting their farming to small plots of land for subsistence use with marginal surpluses.

CADS works with a local farmers’ cooperative, COOPROMA, representing 1,200 low-income farmers who currently generate approximately $400 a year each selling their crops mostly in the nearby cities of Uvira and Bujumbura, the capital of neighbouring Burundi.

Current production of the staple crop corn, for example, averages only 400 tons per year – 10 per cent of normal pre-war output. With CADS’s assistance, COOPROMA seeks to increase the production of corn to 10,000 tons per year.

With the goals of improving nutrition and food security, providing sustainable incomes for local farmers, and helping realize the Ruzizi Valley’s full agricultural potential, CADS is dedicated to augmenting the quantity and quality of food grown in eastern Congo by providing farmers with the assistance needed to:

• Rent tractors to clear and prepare the fields

• Obtain training in advanced agricultural techniques, and

• Purchase the best seeds, fertilizers and pesticides

Flour Mill

In order to generate incomes and add value to their crops, CADS is seeking to purchase a corn flour mill, along with the construction of a small warehouse to house the mill, run by CADS’s Congolese project partner and farming cooperative, COOPROMA.

Although farmers currently grow corn for sale in local markets, much of it is sold with very little value added – unprocessed and still on the cob, or in grain/seed form, which sell for considerably less money than processed corn flour.

Local Congolese living in the Ruzizi Valley depend largely on the staple dish called fufu for their carbohydrate intakes. Known as ugali in Kenya and Tanzania, and by other names in numerous other Central and East African countries, fufu is a boiled mixture of corn, cassava and/or sorghum flour and water.

Rather than being able to mill their own corn themselves, many Congolese in the region – mostly women – frequently make the trek across the border to Rwanda to purchase corn flour – a considerable waste of time, effort, money, and, most importantly, potential incomes.

The installation of a corn flour mill and construction of its warehouse in the Ruzizi Valley would provide local farmers with the opportunity to produce their own corn flour for local consumption, and add value to their crops, thereby increasing their incomes by selling corn flour in local towns and cities.

Amaranth

CADS has begun a pilot project to grow amaranth in the Ruzizi Valley to combat protein deficiencies. Similar to quinoa, amaranth is a highly nutritious crop that contains all of the amino acids required to produce complete proteins – particularly the amino acid lysine. Other grains and sources of carbohydrates – such as corn, wheat, rice, cassava, potatoes, and yams – do not contain significant amounts of lysine, which can be found in beans, meats, fish, poultry and milk to achieve complete proteins.

Grown by the Aztecs, amaranth is considered a ‘miracle grain,’ given its nutritious properties and ease of growing. In addition to its unusual complete-protein properties, amaranth also contains high levels of vitamins and minerals, including calcium (twice the levels found in milk), iron (five times the levels found in wheat), magnesium, and more potassium, folic acid and vitamins A, E, and C than found in most common cereal grains.

Growing amaranth in eastern Congo’s Ruzizi Valley has a great potential to reduce malnutrition by improving people’s levels of protein, vitamins and minerals, as well as provide incomes by selling amaranth grain and flour in local, regional and international markets.

While some varieties of amaranth are already growing in the nearby Lake Victoria basin, these are harvested for their nutritious leaves to make local dishes. The amaranth varieties CADS is piloting in the Ruzizi Valley are grown for their seeds (‘grain amaranth’), which can be cooked and consumed like rice or quinoa, popped like popcorn, or milled into flour.

Amaranth flour is particularly promising, as this can be added to Congolese dishes, primarily fufu (also known as ugali, a boiled mixture of corn, cassava and/or sorghum flour and water). Fufu – the staple carbohydrate in much of the Congo and East Africa – can be made fortified with amaranth flour to provide a protein-rich dish. Amaranth flour can also be used to make bread, cookies, pastas, cakes, muffins and crackers.

Amaranth is considered drought-tolerant, thrives in hot tropical highlands, produces high seed yields, and has very few pests or disease problems.

Similar amaranth growing projects in eastern Uganda have found that consuming grain amaranth has led to improved growth among children and reduced stunting, increased the body mass index of people living with HIV/AIDS, and improved people’s well-being and health. More information on these projects can be found by visiting here and here.

Corn-Waste Charcoal Briquettes

At CADS, we are committed to maximizing the use of local resources, and applying the latest innovations to improve people’s health and wellness.

MIT professor Amy Smith recently developed a simple way to locally convert corn waste – the inedible stalks, spent cobs, and hulls of corn – into charcoal for cooking. Unlike charcoal made from wood, corn-waste charcoal briquettes burn much cleaner, exposing people to much fewer respiratory illnesses.

A study by Berkeley and Harvard researchers found that more than 1.6 million people around the world die prematurely each year from respiratory diseases caused by smoke from indoor cooking with charcoal fires – primarily women and children, as they are invariably the ones cooking meals.

Professor Amy Smith notes that acute respiratory illnesses due to indoor cooking fires are the number one cause of death in children under 5 years old in low-income countries. 400,000 of these annual deaths are in sub-Saharan Africa, and smoke from cooking with wood fires will cause an estimated 10 million premature deaths among African women and children by 2030.

The charcoal trade is a large contributor to deforestation of the areas around the Ruzizi Valley and other parts of eastern Congo, threatening local habitats and wildlife, including endangered gorillas. Additionally, rebels generate substantial funds from the charcoal trade. For more information on the charcoal trade in neighbouring North Kivu province, please read this article.

The dissemination of corn-waste charcoal briquetting techniques in the Ruzizi Valley will have the potential to:

• Prevent deaths due to acute respiratory infections

• Reduce deforestation and the destruction of gorilla habitats

• Generate incomes

• Reduce the funds that support rebels and fuel war in the Congo

To see a TED talk and a YouTube video of Amy Smith explaining how to convert corn waste into charcoal, please see here and here.

Bukavu Land Tenure Project

CADS is working with the British Institute in East Africa to provide a better understanding of land tenure regimes in Bukavu, the provincial capital of South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In the context of rapidly rising urbanization rates in the developing world, particularly in Africa, there is a pressing need for more detailed examination of the linkages between land tenure, economic development and security.

Bukavu’s sustainable development is at the nexus of land tenure, political stability, and economic growth. Land use and tenure regimes are precarious topics in the post-conflict setting of eastern Congo, thus enhancing current knowledge is especially pertinent here as the city’s prospects closely reflect those of the wider region.

Ongoing conflict over land hampers development by limiting the capacity of regular citizens to re-engage in economically productive activities. Given Bukavu’s burgeoning population that has tripled since 1984, and its strategic location for trade between central Africa and the East African Community, understanding how land tenure is managed here is crucial if the city is to realize its full potential.

CADS’s ongoing research is based on interviews in Bukavu with recent migrants, well established community members, policy makers, and local government officials.