Mechanizing farms in Central African Republic
The Central African Republic is an agricultural country, but farming is done almost entirely by hand. The International Trade Centre (ITC) is changing that, through a programme that is introducing tractors and other machinery.
More than 75% of the country, mainly women and young people, make their living through farming, according to a 2023 World Bank report. Most of those jobs are informal, without any social protections.
The country’s recurring crises have also disrupted farming, which remained completely manual until 2016. That’s when the government, supported by the international community, drew up the National Plan for Relief and Peace Consolidation, which made agricultural recovery a pillar of economic development. The plan explicitly called for mechanizing agriculture.
The European Union, through the Békou Trust Fund, made €11 million available to finance the ITC Promotion of Urban and Rural Entrepreneurship Programme (PAPEUR Rural). Békou means hope in the national language, Sango.
This major development programme focuses on agricultural mechanization, and has introduced around 20 tractors and two lorries, as well as multi-faceted support for agricultural inputs like seeds and fertilizer.
The aim is to boost agricultural production, create formal, direct and permanent jobs and make agriculture more sustainable.
Since 2021, PAPEUR Rural has been at the forefront of agricultural mechanization in the Central African Republic, facilitating the clearing and ploughing of thousands of hectares of land.
‘I am pleased to see that the machinery deployed by PAPEUR Rural is ploughing large areas of land of interest to farmers. This is therefore a source of pride,’ said the Central African Minister for the Economy, Planning and International Cooperation.
The minister, who chairs the PAPEUR Rural Steering Committee, spoke during a field mission to project sites on 12 February 2024.
