DRC: Farmer organisations slam new law

Farmers’ organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo say the country’s new Agriculture Law - enacted last December - could lead to many smallholder farmers losing their land. 'We have launched a major appeal to the government to modify the law,' Paluku Mivimba, president of FOPAC, the Congo Federation of Smallholder Farmer Organisations, told IPS. 'Several articles of this law create insecurity of tenure for peasant farmers because they eliminate the possibility of peasant farmers becoming owners of land they have been cultivating for many years,' said Mivimba, who is also the head of the federation’s lobbying unit.