Challenges Faced by Congolese Women Farmers to Access Agricultural Productive Resources: A Review

Abstract

In developing countries, the long decades of the battle against malnutrition, and poverty have placed women on the frontline because they actively play significant roles in agricultural food production, processing, and distribution to ensure food security in the communities. Using peer-reviewed papers and reports from credible organizations, this work examines women's constraints in agricultural food production in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).The key findings show that socioeconomic, environmental, and institutional constraints limit women's control of, and access to necessary resources (land, credit, agricultural technologies, information). Additionally, exchanges and connection between remote rural areas and cities are increasingly limited by impassable roads. This has a negative impact on women's ability to access information on agricultural technologies, in a country where the extension services are barely functioning. While in entities close to cities, agricultural input dealers are the main source of information on agricultural technologies for farmers, in remote areas, women value only their endogenous experiences, shared among farmers. On top of these challenges, the depreciation of the local currency (Congolese francs), the volatile security situation, and the impact of COVID-19 on the international and regional trade have also led to an increase in the price of agriculture inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides) and food commodities, thus exacerbating women's vulnerability. Here, we also address questions about women's limited decision-making power within households (communities), and their low participation in the management of natural resources in DRC where women are poorly represented in decision-making bodies and still have less political influence.

Determinants of credit-seeking among women farmers in southeastern Democratic Republic of Congo

“…The literature has amply shown that the challenges of the financial service market in rural areas are complex and multifaceted. However, results from previous research concurred that smallholder farmers have low access to agriculture credit due to the lack of agricultural credit-related information, lack of collateral, and absence of microfinance institutions in rural areas and the long distance between borrowers and lenders [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Also, available loans are generally not adapted to the agricultural and animalraising cycle [54].…”

“…Studies by [22] and [29] highlight significant differences, in terms of lending practices, between formal and informal financial institutions, arguing that commercial banks and microfinance mostly prefer providing secured loans based on adequate collateral. Studies conducted by [23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30] in Nigeria and Zimbabwe respectively ,show that even if microfinance and banks eased the conditions of access to credit and significantly reduced their interest rates, smallholders might still not take loans through formal lenders for several reasons, including: (i) smallholders' risk-aversion behavior, specifically fear of inability to pay back the loan and subsequent loss of collateral; (ii) collateral requirements and repayment schedule that many smallholders cannot afford; (iii) high transaction costs, including cumbersome loan application procedures; and (iv) smallholder women farmers may find the option of financing input purchases from their own resources through crop sales or borrowing from farmers 'groups and relatives or through husbands' non-farm employment rather than through taking a loan.…”

“…These two localities were selected because of the significant involvement of women in agriculture, particularly in market-oriented vegetable production. Despite both provinces having high poverty and unemployment rates, South Kivu has faced significantly higher challenges due primarily to armed conflict and insecurity, which caused a mass rural exodus and increased impoverishment [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. Being around Bukavu town, Kabare has recorded a rise in demand for land, leading to rapid marshland conversion for growing food [32].…”