Plantations et Huileries du Congo (PHC) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) signed a memorandum of understanding on June 28th in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to launch a partnership for the intensive production of rice, maize, soybean and cassava seeds that will be used for the implementation of the 145 Territories Development Program (PDL-145T), an agricultural transformation initiative spearheaded by the president of the DRC, Félix-Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo.

The memorandum of understanding between the two institutions was signed by PHC’s managing director, Ms. Monique Gieskes, and IITA’s managing director, Dr. Sanginga Nteranya, at the the PHC office in Kinshasa.

PHC is a leading player in agricultural production in the DRC, with qualified technical staff for the production of high-quality seeds and institutional expertise in managing large-scale agricultural production activities. Under the agreement with IITA, PHC will produce food crop seeds in order to contribute to the development of local seed production capacity that can meet the needs of Congolese farmers.

Seed production activities will take place at the PHC sites of Yaligimba in the Mongala province and Lokutu in the Tshopo province, both of which benefit from favorable climatic conditions for seed cultivation, as defined in the agreement.

In 2021, PHC launched a Community Development Program (CDP) to improve community livelihoods in proximity to its concessions through agricultural production activities that align with the Sustainable Development Goals. The CDP intervenes along several programmatic axes, including perennial crop production (e.g., cocoa and fruit trees), food crop production (e.g., maize and cassava) and specialized agriculture (e.g., vanilla and essential oils). The new activities that PHC will undertake in partnership with IITA will serve to provide even greater opportunities to the communities surrounding the company’s sites, further supporting PHC’s vision of creating shared prosperity through agribusiness.