July 24, 2014

In its first step to utilise ample arable land for food production, the Democratic Republic of Congo has established its first agricultural business park in the country.

With the launch of the 75,000 hectare Bukanga Lonzo park, Jean Chrysostome Vahamwiti, the minister for agriculture and rural development, believes that the initiative has the potential to generate growth and reduce the vulnerability of a national economy which mainly depends on natural resources and fluctuations of international markets.

Bukanga Lonzo is meant to create up to 20,000 jobs. Similar sites are due for launched in each of Congo's 11 provinces.

The country presently has 80 million hectares of arable land, with 70% of the population working in farming. With most involved in subsistence agriculture, the country spent US$1.5 billion on food imports last year.

The national economy is due to grow by 8.7%, with expansion largely dependent on the eastern-focused mining sector.

Meanwhile, the government hopes that foreign and local farmers will be able to produce a wide range of vegetables including corn, beans and cassava as well as meat and fish to be mainly sold in Kinshasa, which is home to some 10 million people.

Congo's per capita agricultural production has been in decline since the 1960s, with 70% of its population living on under a dollar daily, according to John Ulimwengu, the senior adviser for agriculture and rural development in the prime minister's office.

Ulimwengu added that small scale farmers had a role to play, for example, in selling produce to the business park.