Challenges to the Development of Family Farms in Mountainous South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo

Despite the enormous agricultural potential of the South Kivu province in Democratic Republic of Congo, family farming does not ensure food self-sufficiency for farmers due to diverse constraints hindering the development of agricultural activities. The objective of this article is to identify and analyze the constraints in order to propose some possible solutions to develop family farming in mountainous South Kivu. Data used were collected through the interviews with 150 family farmers purposively selected and equally distributed among the three sampled zones, namely Mbinga Sud Locality in Kalehe Territory and Bugorhe and Irhambi Localities in Kabare Territory. For data analysis, the z-test was carried out using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software to examine the differences of the proportions between the localities covered by the study. The results point to two main constraints, namely lack of access to agricultural finance and difficulties in marketing agricultural products. The first is due to the lack of financial institutions (88%) for granting agricultural credit as a result of low profitability of agricultural activities and lack of collaterals because farmers are poor. The second constraint concerns the difficulties encountered in marketing agricultural products, more specifically due to less remunerating producer prices (83.3%). In order to enable the access to finance and guarantee remunerative prices to family farmers, the facilities for farm produce storage, innovative financing systems such as inventory credit model, contract farming and value chain financing could be put in place.