• About
    • Board of Directors
    • Staff
    • Meet our Donors
    • News
  • Issues
    • Safety
    • Opportunity
    • Reporting
    • Recognition
    • Equity
  • Programs
    • Reporting Fellowships
      • Elizabeth Neuffer Fellowship
      • ¡Exprésate! LGBTQI+ Reporting Initiative
      • Gender Justice Reporting Initiative
      • Global Health Reporting Initiative
      • Round Earth Media
    • Grants & Funds
      • Fund For Women Journalists
      • Fund for Indigenous Journalists: Reporting on MMIWG2T
      • Kari Howard Fund for Narrative Journalism
      • Kim Wall Memorial Fund
      • Reproductive Rights Reporting Fund
      • Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice in the Americas
    • Physical & Digital Safety
      • Online Abuse and Harassment
      • Hostile Environment Training
      • Next Gen Safety Trainers
    • Mentorship & Professional Development
      • Gwen Ifill Mentorship Program
      • Fellowship Program for Afghan Women Journalists in Exile
      • Women in Politics and Media
    • Emergency Assistance
      • Emergency Fund for Women Journalists
      • Black Journalists Therapy Relief Fund
      • Alex Duval Smith Memorial Fund
    • Past Programs
  • Reporting
  • Community
  • Awards
    • Anja Niedringhaus Award
    • Courage in Journalism Award
    • Gwen Ifill Award
  • Resources
    • Self Care & Trauma
    • Research
    • Impact Reports
    • Webinars
  • Search
Search Donate
Reporting

Congo Volcano Brings Farmers Rich Soil But Eruption Threat

June 25, 2016 | Christin Roby | AP

GOMA, Congo (AP) – Hacking away in the midday sun, 49-year-old farmer Daniel Lazuba remembers vividly his life before one of Africa’s most active volcanos erupted 14 years ago.

“All of this was corn before,” he said as he pointed to rows of new banana trees pushing up between black stones. “My cabbage seems to be growing better than ever these days, but in this area, I still have to start from zero.”

Traumatized farmers like Lazuba are slowly returning to fields decimated by the 2002 eruption of Mount Nyiragongo in eastern Congo. Flowing lava flattened more than 30 percent of the city of Goma, 20 kilometers away. Nearly 150 people died, and 400,000 fled into neighboring Rwanda.

Now farmers returning to their fields find increased harvests from the rich volcanic soil, but there are signs that Nyiragongo will erupt again.

One farmer, Patrick Tamoini, said his harvests have risen over the past two harvests since he returned to his patch of land a short walk from the volcano’s base. The 41-year-old pockets more than $100 a month after taking care of family expenses, more than double his earnings before the eruption, he said. The average per capita monthly income in Congo is nearly $32 a month, according to the World Bank.

But returning to the fields wasn’t easy.

“The pain of what I lost kept me from coming back for such a long time,” Tamoini said. “With this level of production, I’m glad I finally did.”

The chemical makeup of volcanic soil makes for lucrative farming conditions, say researchers at the Goma Volcano Observatory.

“Lava actually enriches the soil that it initially burned,” said Mathieu Yalira, the chair of observatory’s geochemistry and environment department. Volcanic soil includes fertilizing elements such as iron, phosphorus and potassium, he said. In the years after an eruption, a process known as chemical weathering slowly makes lava soil more fertile than ordinary earth.

Local farmers didn’t seize on those benefits right away, observers say.

“Initially, no one was coming back because they were too devastated to see their burned fields,” said the chair of the observatory’s seismology department, Georges Mavonga. “But within the past year, visits toward the volcano have shown new villages in areas that were uninhabited before.”

He said the increase in lava soil farming may be a result of initial farmers seeing the benefits and spreading information to friends and family.

But the farmers should not get too attached to the newly fertile fields, warns the Rwanda Red Cross, which cared for many fleeing the 2002 eruption.

In February, an earthquake far beneath the surface caused rumbling noises near Virunga National Park, where the volcano is located. Since then, a new vent has appeared on the northeastern edge of the crater floor that shoots lava into the air every 30 seconds.

The Rwanda Red Cross has increased surveillance of the volcano in conjunction with the observatory.

“There are only presumptions about the next eruption, but people who study the daily life of this volcano tell us it could happen any day,” said Yves Riupi, a Red Cross crisis manager who works with seismologists at the Rwanda Natural Resources Authority.

The risk of another eruption is one that some farmers, whose lives depend on their crops, are now willing to take.

With vegetation growing more than six feet tall in some places with the rich volcanic soil, farmers say they want to keep working their fields, until the volcano erupts.

“If another one comes, who am I to stop it?” Lazuba asked. “There is nothing I can do.”

___

Roby’s reporting was assisted by the International Women’s Media Foundation African Great Lakes Reporting Initiative: https://www.iwmf.org/programs/african-great-lakes-reporting-initiative/

About the Author

Christin Roby

Christin is a freelance multimedia journalist based in Abidjan, Ivory Coast. Before moving to Africa, Christin worked as a reporter in newsrooms across Chicago and Washington, D.C. for more than… Read More.

Original Publication
AP
Related Topics
Environment
Politics

Sign Up For Our Mailing List

Mission

We unleash the potential of women journalists as champions of press freedom to transform the global news media.

Address

1625 K Street NW, Suite 1275
Washington, DC 20006, USA

Contact Us

info@iwmf.org
(+1) 202-496-1992

Connect
Privacy Terms of Service

Copyright © 2023 International Women's Media Foundation. All Rights Reserved.
Nonprofit Web Design by NMC.