Conditions of acceptability of innovative practices by urban market gardeners in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo
Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Increasing pressure on natural resources due to urbanization has worsened the living conditions of Lubumbashi's inhabitants. To survive, city dwellers resort to informal income-generating activities such as urban agriculture. Unfortunately, the production practices adopted do not guarantee crop yields, the sanitary quality of vegetables or the preservation of the environment. This gloomy state of affairs does not prevent development support projects from thinking about the challenges of development through sustainable local agriculture, by promoting agricultural innovations. The general aim of this study is to determine the conditions for sustained adoption of agricultural innovations by market gardeners in Lubumbashi, in order to guide policies and strategies for disseminating innovations in urban agriculture, which is confronted with an inoperative institutional or organizational framework. Data collection was organized into three separate sets of surveys, focusing respectively on the economic performance of Chinese cabbage production and marketing (the main vegetable crop), the factors behind sustained adoption of innovations, and the role played by informal mutual aid networks. Respondents were selected at random. The first series of surveys, carried out between April and August 2019, involved 537 farmers and 374 vendors, whose data were used to assess the economic performance of Chinese cabbage production and marketing. This is the largest survey ever carried out in Lubumbashi's market gardening perimeters. The second data collection focused on sustained adoption factors for innovations. Carried out between April and August 2020, it targeted 202 farmers among the respondents from the previous survey. Finally, the third survey, focused on mutual aid, mobilized the participation of 88 farmers from the samples trained for the two previous surveys. Results showed that market gardeners in Lubumbashi grew 3.7 (σ =1.3) ares of Chinese cabbage in monoculture and obtained a low daily income of 2.8 euros, 2.5 times less than that of vendors (7.1 euros). Daily income is positively and significantly influenced by area sown (r2 = 0.6223) and production (r2= 0.7981). All other things being equal, the market gardener would need to cultivate an area of 10.6 ares in order to generate a daily income of 9.25 US dollars and enable each member of his household to be at the regional poverty line of 1.25 US dollars. In the context of land pressure, our results underline the need to strengthen farmers' production systems through innovative techniques. The results of the second survey show that there are contrasting factors and obstacles to the sustained adoption of the two innovations studied. The motor pump requires a substantial investment, while integrated soil fertility management requires a change in practices. Moreover, land tenure status, diversification of income sources, membership of an association and access to credit positively and significantly influence sustained adoption of the motor pump, while informal mutual aid networks, membership of an association and access to credit positively and significantly influence sustained adoption of integrated soil fertility management. The results of the third survey revealed that 79.5% of respondents used informal mutual aid networks. Over the course of a production cycle, each market gardener solicits help from more than a dozen other producers. This help takes the form of the sharing of production resources or agricultural know-how, the frequency and intensity of exchanges of which enable us to distinguish four categories as follows: highly exchanged resources with a high intensity of exchange (hoes, watering cans, phytosanitary products and chicken droppings), highly exchanged resources with a low intensity of exchange (land capital, spades and seeds), lightly exchanged resources with a low intensity of exchange (motorized pumps and buckets) and non-exchanged resources (financing, labor, chemical fertilizers). In terms of shared know-how, soil preparation, soil fertility management, pest control and sales techniques are widely shared. Our analysis shows that informal mutual aid networks are powerful, low-cost communication channels that can support the dissemination and sustained adoption of agricultural innovations. The study recommends that political authorities and development support projects take into account the sustained adoption factors identified, as well as informal mutual aid networks, when devising strategies for disseminating agricultural innovations to urban agriculture in developing countries, which is often characterized by inoperative institutional or organizational frameworks.
Author: Kesonga Nsele, Maurice
Institution: University of Liège
Language: French
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7112564341