Francis is a member of the APEF Board of Directors and he is in charge of monitoring our collaboration with « Kesho Congo » in South Kivu in the DRC, an association that invests with great energy in the fight against malnutrition, that especially children up to 10 years old. Here is the message he sent us in the first days of his annual mission to Kesho Congo. Francis spent a few days with Henri Bisimwa, agronomist responsible for the production of the ingredients needed to prepare porridge with leaf extracts (corn, soy, sorghum and cowpea) distributed in particular in the Bukavu Nutritional Center, created and managed by the association thanks to funding from the Coromandel Foundation.

Hi there,
I am in Luvungi. We arrived yesterday afternoon. More than 5 hours on the road! Not easy but fascinating! Impressive scenery and unmaintained degraded roads: a significant difficulty which will be specified in my activity report.
I had time when I arrived to visit the training center and the land cultivated by Kesho Congo. A plot of 1.5 ha in the middle of a practically unexploited plain.
It is the end of the dry season which has lasted for more than 10 months this year. While the rains normally last up to 8 months. Climate change is setting in and causing damage.
The solution ? Irrigation as suggested by Gilles! The Ruzizi is flowing with great bubbles nearby.

But the farmer alone can do nothing, it is up to the groups of farmers to influence the policies to obtain the rehabilitation of the irrigation networks that have apparently existed since Belgian colonization, but which have not benefited from any maintenance throughout the conflicts of the past 25 years. In the meantime, agricultural production must be oriented towards mainly rainfed varieties such as sorghum and millet… These are the messages that Kesho Congo can transmit in its training mission here. I met Henri and we already talked about it. We have a meeting this morning as an information session with the farmers.
We return on Sunday after reviewing the grounds and discussing the results obtained. Ah yes also, an unexpected guest this night: the rain!!!
Have a good weekend and see you soon for the rest.
Francis