Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) Data Book

Last update: August 15, 2024

This page contains information about some of the data available in the FEWS NET Data Explorer (FDE) for DRC. This is not a comprehensive guide.

For information about using the filters and fields for specific domains in the FDE, see Choose a Data Domain.

Summary table

Country context

The two-letter country code for the DRC is CD.

The neighboring Republic of Congo country code is CG.

Statistical reporting units

DRC usually uses administrative units as their statistical reporting units.

Administrative (admin) units are the geographical areas into which a country is divided. FEWS NET uses the following terminology: National boundary = admin 0, First sub-national division = admin 1 (e.g., states in the United States), Second sub-national division = admin 2 (e.g., counties in the United States), and so on.

There are several annual administrative boundary sets in the FEWS NET database, including:

• The annual boundary set that was in use in 1988, which is the earliest year for which FEWS NET has crop statistics.

• One which begins in 2015. The 2015 annual set saw several complex changes:

  • Some Admin 2 units were promoted to Admin 1.

  • Some previous Admin 1 units were eliminated.

  • Four of the Admin 1 units remained as they were.

  • At least two of the Admin 1 units from the 1997 set (Equateur and Kasai-Orientale) were split into new Admin 1 units, but one of the new units retained the old name, complicating time-series tracking.

Crop data

Explore our crop data.

View our documentation on using the Crop Domain.

Crop estimate data sources

There are three principal sources from which the DRC agricultural statistics have been extracted:

1. A series of three Ministry of Agriculture Ag Statistics yearbooks (2000-2006, 2006-2010, 2006-2011).

2. A series of three National Institute of Statistics yearbooks (the first since 1995 was undertaken in 2014, then 2015 and 2020), reporting a broad variety of data, including agricultural statistics.

3. One-off agricultural surveys (1988-1900, 2016, 2017, 2018) for which there have been differing objectives and products.

The Institut National de la Statistique (INS) is a possible source of future agricultural statistical data but is not actively updated at this time. The Ministry of Agriculture (minagri.gouv.dc) website is not online.

Crop reporting units

Note that for purposes of longitudinal comparisons of area and yield, despite various changes to the administrative statistical reporting units in DRC, admin 1 level data for Bas-Congo (Bas-Zaire), Maniema, North-Kivu, and South-Kivu have used the same spatial boundaries between the earliest (1988) and latest (2019) agricultural years in the FEWS NET database.

Primary crops

Primary food crops in Congo DRC include Maize, Cassava, Plantains, Rice, and Beans.

Year and season definition

The annual cropping year, or annee culturelle, runs between August 1 and July 31 of the following year. The crop year is often described with a two-year notation, (e.g., 2018/2019). This same year may be referred to using the first year of the two-year notation (start-aligned). All FEWS NET crop data for DRC is annual data.

Example: The 2018/2019 cropping year may be described as 2018.

Given the climate of DRC, planting and production occur throughout much of the year.

Agricultural statistics and facts

The present DRC crop estimates found in the FEWS NET database covers the period between 1995 and 2019. A relatively weak national agricultural monitoring and evaluation capability led to "official" agricultural statistics being released by differing entities, for different purposes, over this period.

It is an unusual set of statistics for FEWS NET in several respects:

• Of the more than 13,300 records it contains, only 5.1% of those provide any type of area data. Just over 9,000 records are comprised only of a quantity estimate. Records with both an area and production estimate are generally found in the 2016-2019 period.

• Not all reporting units have been covered by recent agricultural evaluations. It is not known what percentage of the country's production is represented by the statistics presented here, although it is believed to be high. Some of the entities carrying out agricultural surveys have not respected the official administrative unit boundaries being used. Instead, some retrospectively compiled old data into newer boundaries, or continued reporting new agricultural data against an older boundary set.

• To best understand and use the agricultural statistics presented here, it is useful to consider the FNIDs and annual boundary sets that are shown here as "agricultural boundary sets" that resemble the administrative boundaries, but do not necessarily duplicate them.

There are 2 time series of agricultural statistics that have been compiled from official agricultural statistic reporting in the period covered here. Each is differentiated by the annual boundary set they use:

1. The first uses the 1997 annual boundary dataset, and often reports at both the Admin 1 and Admin 2 units between 2000 and 2011 (86 reporting units).

2. The other uses admin boundaries which were implemented in 2015, and runs between 2000-present, only at the Admin 1 level (26 reporting units).

Crop estimation methodology

Of the 145 current admin 1 and 2 administrative units in the country, recent crop evaluations have covered only 86 because they are:

1. Areas of relatively major agricultural production,

2. Not suffering from insecurity and difficulty of access, and/or

3. Not threatened by crop diseases, such as chenille légionnaire d’automne or Spodoptera frugiperda - https://fdw.fews.net/documents/#/documents/documents/documents/10008/preview/

Three other evaluations of agricultural production between 2016 and 2018 were carried out by the following national authorities, assisted by FAO and WFP:

• Ministry of Agriculture (Direction de la Production et Protection des Végétaux du Ministère de l’Agriculture, or DPPV)

• Cellule d’Analyse des Indicateurs de Développement de la Primature (CAID) et la Coordination de la Situation de la Sécurité Alimentaire

• Alerte Précoce et Système d’Informations Géographiques (CSSAP/SIG)

The objectives of these evaluations were multiple, but primarily driven by the need to understand the scale of destruction of maize underway by the "chenille". Although the first of these evaluations was conceived as a one-off effort, it was followed as an example in two other annual investigations/evaluations that followed it in succeeding years.

The surveyed zones were selected based upon their importance in the country’s production of maize, and on their proximity to areas most heavily infested by “chenille legionnaire (Spodoptera frugiperda)”. They were, initially carried out using a review of existing statistical data, followed by field visits with administrative and technical services and farmers. A series of questionnaires were developed and carried out to record observations and information provided. These were then cleaned and compiled before being provided to a validation meeting comprised of all parties - https://fdw.fews.net/documents/#/documents/documents/documents/10007/preview/.