Eat Local initiatives in the Greater Kansas City area are surprisingly similar to this surge in local food production in the African nation of Congo. Picture Credit from Ending Extreme Poverty -ALR
For some seven million Congolese living in Kinshasa the only meat and poultry they could buy to eat since the 1980s was frozen imports from Western countries, distributed locally by a few local businessmen.
That was, until a few months ago, when government stepped in to develop the country’s livestock farming industry. “The government cannot accept that (the) Congolese live on a meager diet composed mainly of frozen chicken imported under questionable conditions while the country has a tremendous food production potential,” says Norbert Bashengezi Katintima, minister of agriculture, fisheries and livestock.
In December 2009 with financial support from the African Development Bank (ADB), the government launched a large poultry project in N’Sele, a rural town in the western outskirts of Kinshasa, the country’s capital. The project, which is entirely government-run, received funding to the tune of eight million dollars.
In an interview with IPS, Juvenal Bahun, livestock advisor to minister Katintima, said that “the ministry has adopted a roadmap laying the groundwork for a serious country-wide fight against the food crisis and food insecurity.” For now, he added, the ADB-funded pig and poultry farming pilot project will only cover Kinshasa, Katanga (South Eastern Congo) and West Kasai (in the South West).
“This project also aims to improve food quality for the Congolese and support small farmers with technical and practical advice in agricultural production,” he said.“There’s been an obvious improvement of food quality. Approximately 1,800 chickens are sold every day across eight sites scattered around Kinshasa. “Besides the quality aspect, the project also creates jobs.
Complete Article from World Poultry
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