Urban agriculture and household livelihood in a area of post-conflict in Central Africa

This study presents an analysis of the technical and socio-economic specificities of urban agriculture in a post conflict 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 conflict 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.