Agriculture urbaine et subsistance des ménages dans une zone de post-conflit en Afrique centrale

Abstract

Urban agriculture and household subsistence in a post-confl ict zone in Central Africa. This study presents an analysis of the technical and socio-economic specifi cities of urban agriculture in a post confl ict region in Central Africa, based on a survey in Brazzaville (Congo) in 2002. Hereby 710 households have been randomly selected from a previous survey data base containing 2 800 urban households. About one third of the Brazzaville households are involved in urban agriculture with 29.5% households reporting crop production activities and 8.8% animal production activities. Within animal production, aviculture activities are dominant. Gardening and vegetable production play also an important role. The confl ict situation of 1997 affected negatively urban agricultural production in particular the animal production. Although, urban agriculture is present among different social and professional categories, there is a clear dominance of subsistence and poor households, especially those already active in agriculture before. In contrast to crop production, mainly practised for subsistence reasons, the motivation for animal production is driven more by the income than by the own consumption possibilities. The results also indicate that assuring a sustainable and equitable urban development is possible by a good balance between those practising urban agriculture and those not. This requires the limitation of the negative effects (odour and other nuisances) but also the removal of certain constraints limiting the productivity of urban farming, most importantly the provision of inputs, the theft of animals and soil degradation.

Keywords

• Congo
• Central Africa
• animal production
• crop production
• urban
• socio-economics
• subsistence
• post-confl ict