Potential threats to agricultural food production and farmers’ coping strategies in the marshlands of Kabare in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Abstract

In the South Kivu province of the DR Congo, marshes are considered as favorable lands for various crop productions, and these improve food security and livelihood of thousands of households. We analyzed survey data collected from 148 farmers using a binary logit model and descriptive statistics in order to identify the potential threats to agricultural production, and the coping strategies used by farmers in marshlands. Results showed that 65% of respondents were female, and 76% of all farmers claimed perceiving threats to agricultural production in marshes. The perceived potential threats to agriculture included floods, pest infestation (millipede, fall armyworm), crop theft, and unsecure land-holding status as well as the decrease in soil fertility. Moreover, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has also led to the increase in prices of agricultural inputs (pesticides, seeds), and manure that has become increasingly rare and expensive due to the drastic reduction in livestock in that region weakened by several years of civil war and insecurity. In response, farmers were combining several adaptation strategies and these included drainage, mulching, manure application, and crop diversification used by farmers for, respectively, managing floods, maintaining soil fertility, and reducing crop failure. To cope with land scarcity, both female (75%) and male ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Modeling Pesticide Use Behavior Among Farmers in the Upper East Region of Ghana: An Empirical Application of the Theory of Planned Behavior

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“…Therefore, the people endured low wages or salaries policy and unemployment, aside from other problems in relationship with rapid population growth and ceaseless wars that together aggravated poverty in the country [2,4,11]. For other researchers, urban agriculture can be an opportunity to create new employment, strengthen social bonds, build resilience to climate change, rendering cities greener, and protect their biodiversity [1,10,[12][13][14]. In the City of Lubumbashi, it is looked at as a subsistence farming of edible plants and as a source of income [1,4,10,[13][14][15] for a significant part of the population of quarters wherein lands are sufficiently watered by streams or located along water bodies [1,6].…”

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“…Given the easy access to water and arable lands, aside from benefits related to the informal sector paying activities [1,13,14,20], the urban agriculture's practice can be viewed in the Haut-Katanga region as a true godsend for the people living in urban centres [4,21]. However, according to [22], not all people perceive urban agriculture as a godsend; that is, it can benefit a city and its dwellers [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][11][12][13][14]. Instead, some people consider it harmful to farmers, consumers, the environment, and the urban land economy.…”