This guide is designed as a support tool for technicians and farmers involved in actions to promote and develop agroecology.
It is a follow-up to a first technical guide published in 2014 in the Democratic Republic of Congo as part of the DEFIV project, a food security project implemented by GRET, funded by the European Union and Agence française de développement.
As part of this project, farmers in Mayanda, an agricultural area located on the outskirts of Boma in Bas-Congo province, received agroecology and agroforestry support. New techniques were proposed and tested in farming field schools, and subsequently in pilot farmers’ plots. Techniques that proved effective were then promoted in the area. Agricultural producers then expressed their wish to have a written support recording crop management sequences and know-how developed as part of the project. They wanted to be able to refer to these if necessary. So a booklet was written in Kikongo, the language of Bas-Congo. It featured numerous illustrations, so that people with poor or no reading skills can use it.
Beyond this African region, it emerged that technicians and farmers involved in promoting agroecology in tropical wet zones had little technical information that could be quickly and easily mobilized in the field. Hence the idea for this guide, which aims to respond to their needs.
