In DRC’s Ituri, women coffee farmers wrestle with an uncertain future
Al Jazeera
Local cooperatives are stepping in to support vulnerable farmers, mostly women, struggling in conflict-ridden east DRC.
Ituri, Democratic Republic of the Congo – Early each morning, 50-year-old Kavira Matsetse walks for two hours to reach her coffee plantation in Biakato, in northeastern Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC) Ituri province.
The widow and mother of eight inherited the plantation from her late husband nearly a decade ago, and has worked hard to cultivate it ever since.
“My husband was killed in 2015 during attacks in Oicha in the neighbouring province of North Kivu,” she told Al Jazeera, recounting how the family fled to Biakato where it was up to her “to erect a home and a life from scratch in a new locality with new people”.
Lush green rows of coffee trees cover rolling hills and valleys in Biakato. But in striking contrast, the area has also witnessed decades-long conflict and violence.
Ituri, like most of eastern DRC, has been overridden by interethnic and religious tensions, conflicts over land resources, and violence fuelled by political and economic factors.
