Improving Farming through Agricultural Microenterprise

working in a fieldAgricultural microenterprise has been important in the region for decades. In the 1970s and '80s Evangelical Covenant Church missionaries with agricultural experience worked with the CEUM's rural development staff to create fish ponds stocked with tilapia fish and plantations of palm trees, from whose nuts palm oil was made. Farmers grew beans, coffee, cocoa, and fruit trees and sold their produce at markets.
 
Much of that was wiped out in the war, and the Ubangi region, like the country itself, has been starting over. The Paul Carlson Partnership is working with the people to create new opportunities for families to earn the cash they need to pay for school and hospital fees and to broaden their children's diets beyond what they grow.
 
As subsistence farmers, most people in the area are accustomed to growing only what they will eat and eating only what they can grow. The growing conditions are good, and it is not hard for a farmer to grow more in order to sell some for cash. The chief problem is access to markets. The PCP has already supported a variety of agricultural microenterprise projects, and we have plans for a major program in this area, pending confirmation of funding.

 

Economic Development  |  Improving Farming  |  Improving Trade  | 
Improving Infrastructure  |  Local Management Development