In collaboration with the Slow Food Community for the Promotion of Agroecological Coffee from Kahuzi-Biega

In the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, around Kahuzi-Biega National Park, agroecological coffee farmers continue to work amid armed conflict, fear, and poverty. Abandoned fields, reduced harvests, and impassable roads mark their daily lives, yet an extraordinary sense of community endures. Here, the aroma of coffee mingles with the distant sound of gunfire, in one of the country’s most fertile regions but also among those hardest hit by armed conflict.

Coffee is not just a crop: it is family heritage, dignity, and survival. It is the means through which entire communities try to cope with daily fear, continuing to cultivate the land despite insecurity, sudden evacuations, and constant threats from armed groups.

This story is told through the testimonies collected by the Slow Food community “Promotion du café agroécologique de Kahuzi-Biega,” which gives a voice to producers, women, and young people committed to defending sustainable agriculture.

For Mauwa Ngaboyeka, 24, every day in the fields is a delicate balance between necessity and fear. After his father fell ill, he took over part of the family’s land, growing coffee and producing seedlings for the community. Today, however, many plots are difficult to reach. “One day we heard gunshots and were forced to flee,” she says. Since then, she has worked only on the land closest to home, sacrificing part of the harvest to avoid the most dangerous areas. The consequences are immediate: a smaller harvest means less income, fewer medicines, less soap, and less ability to pay for her younger siblings’ schooling.

Yet Mauwa continues to believe in agroecology as a tool of resistance: natural compost, agroforestry, and intercropping coffee, bananas, and beans to ensure a minimum level of food security.

For Mwendapole Nsibula, a 65-year-old veteran farmer, the war has also radically changed his relationship with the land. He has been growing coffee for over forty years and serves as an advisor to the younger members of the community. Today, however, he speaks of fields left fallow for weeks, overrun with weeds because they’re impossible to reach safely. “Production has dropped dramatically,” he explains. “And buyers come by less and less often.” The roads are unsafe, trade is slowing, and incomes are plummeting. Mwendapole continues to work nonetheless, sustained by mutual aid among neighbors and the conviction that the land remains the heart of the community.

Among the most emblematic voices are those of young farmers. Ciza Kanane, coordinator for the younger generation, describes how many young people have left the villages to escape the violence. Those who remain must reinvent farm work, adapting it to an unpredictable daily life: “I’ve had to turn back while heading to the fields because of clashes.”

Work is suddenly interrupted, transportation is difficult, farming tools are scarce, and the labor force is shrinking.

That’s why young people have started working in groups, organizing collectively to reduce risks and speed up farming activities. And then there are the women, the silent pillars of rural resilience. Kitumaini Vencianne, 60, a coffee producer and head of a community savings association, speaks of increasingly meager harvests, fields that are difficult to reach, and a fear that has become a constant presence. “Fear has become our daily bread.”

Despite this, she continues to encourage other women to participate in coffee farming and community life. During the harvest, farmers organize themselves to work together in the fields, reducing the time spent in the most exposed areas.

Solidarity is the common thread running through all these stories. Where security, infrastructure, and economic support are lacking, the community becomes the only true social safety net.

The agroecological approach promoted by Slow Food takes on an even deeper meaning here: not only environmental sustainability, but also autonomy, resilience, and the defense of human dignity. Composting, soil fertility conservation, crop diversification, and agroforestry become concrete tools for addressing the climate crisis, poverty, and conflict.

The producers’ requests are simple but urgent: farming tools, seeds, technical training, microcredit, secure trade routes, and opportunities for young people and women. But above all, they are asking for attention. Because behind every cup of coffee grown in Kahuzi-Biega are families who continue to resist in silence, safeguarding the land even when everything around them seems to be pushing toward abandonment.