Project
SMP23002 Scoping study on the feed supply for poultry in the DR Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has the third largest population (93 million) of sub-Saharan Africa after Nigeria and Ethiopia. While the DRC shows one of the highest population growth (3.1% per year), poverty rates are also high, resulting in widespread malnutrition and hunger. Inadequate consumption of nutritious foods has a large impact on the health of DRC’s population. Increasing the consumption of nutrient dense foods such as animal products has been proposed by the FAO to improve current diets. One of the means to improve current diets is to increase the consumption of poultry products, i.e., eggs and poultry meat. For example, the availability of eggs in the DRC (0.2 g/day/capita) is extremely low, even for Sub Saharan Africa standards (1.4 g/day/capita). The reason is the low local poultry production: about two-thirds of the eggs consumed in the DRC are imported, and over 80% of the total consumed poultry meat is imported. Hence, the major share of consumer needs for poultry meat and eggs is not met by local production.
This SMP aims to identify opportunities, bottlenecks and stakeholders in the feed ingredient supply chain of the DRC. The SMP will be too small to overcome all constraints that will be identified in DRC’s current feed supply. We use the analysis as a basis for the formulation of a proposal for the National Agricultural Development Program funded by the World Bank (WB). Such a proposal must address the identified bottlenecks and develop integrated strategies to increase and secure the supply of raw materials for feed ingredients in the DRC.