The Role of Conflict in Farmers’ Crop Choices in North Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo

However, uncertainty arising from violent conflict on farming choices lacks substantial academic attention. In this research, the ramifications of conflict on household cropping choices are addressed, building on the notion of "conflict resistant" cropping systems introduced in Kibriya et al. 2014 and King et al. 2013. The researchers argue that farming households' preferences change under conflict as they revert to a cropping system that minimizes losses. The concept of conflict-resistant cropping choices is relatively novel in academia. "War resistant" crops were discussed in Zilverberg's 2007 MS thesis on "Agriculture, Technology, and Conflict," based on his field research in post-conflict Santa Cruz del Quiché, Guatemala. He noted that during times of war, farming households' cropping choices are altered to produce crops that are difficult to be destroyed and can be cultivated without much risk. Price observed during fieldwork in DR Congo in 2014 that food acquisition from farmers by guerilla fighters and the regular military occurs in several ways. Fighters typically roam in small groups and may steal clandestinely or at gunpoint. Larger groups may requisition food from village leaders, or order the community to vacate their farms or homes at harvest time so that their crops might be taken. "Conflict resistant" crops are those crops that provide the best return to the farmer under such conditions. More generally, they are crops which best support bare-minimum food security in households that are exposed to armed conflict. Existing literature on cropping decisions under conflict in North Kivu is limited, but Vlassenroot and Raeymaekers have touched on the subject in extensive work on the history and political economy of eastern DRC. They note for example that in Masisi, North Kivu, during conflict farmers' crop choices demonstrate "a significant shift from extensive to intensive cultivation and from perennial crops to low-risk and seasonal crops." In this context, they describe agricultural decision-making as "increasingly guided by the minimizing of risk rather than the maximizing of profits. In addition, the diversification of crops [is] in accordance with tenure security, which explain[s] the reduction of perennial crops." Among the few instances in the literature where farmer decision-making under conditions of conflict is quantified, Rockmore (2014) uses a large dataset from northern Uganda to examine cropping and livestock holdings. He shows that in areas where rebel activity is reported, farmers keep less livestock, with a more pronounced negative effect on large animal holdings (i.e. cows) and a potentially positive effect on pig holdings. He also finds that in areas with rebel activity, fewer households choose to cultivate cassava, beans, and maize, while more households cultivate millet. Previous work by Kibriya, Partida, King, Price (2012) has laid out a set of crop characteristics which are associated with conflict-resistance. Building upon their work, conflict resistance can be conveyed through a combination of several different properties, including (1) low visibility, (2) harvesting or transport difficulty for looters, (3) production in home gardens or infields as opposed to outfields, (4) extensive processing requirements, (5) quick damage recovery, (6) continual production, (7) market complexity, and (8) annual (vs. perennial) growth pattern. Farming households under conflict will tend to forgo crops that are of high nutritional value and are easily marketable, and choose instead to cultivate crops with some combination of these characteristics. The researchers formulate a definition of a 'conflict-resistant cropping system' as the cultivation of a set of crops with some combination of the above characteristics, on the part of a smallholder in response to conditions of widespread active civil conflict. The primary objective of this study is to explore the conditions (i.e. the specific categories of conflict) under which crop theft in particular occurs, and how farmers' choices of crops are influenced by the incidence of conflict. The researchers also aim to further clarify attributes that impart conflict resistance to crops and cropping systems, and to learn what factors might moderate the effects of conflict on crop choice, such as ease of converting crops to cash through market access.