Giulio Napolitano

Population growth is a major challenge facing Burundi as it moves away from civil strife. FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) is assisting farmers to produce more on less land and find ways to make their small agribusinesses profitable.
In the courtyard of her house in Kibezi, Marie-Rose Manirambona is preparing lunch, a plate of beans, rice and cassava leaves. She will just serve her three smallest children, she says. The other five eat once a day, in the evening.
Originally from the nearby town of Kiremba in northern Burundi, Manirambona has lived in this settlement for internally-displaced people ever since she lost her husband to ‘the crisis’, as she calls the civil war that broke out in 1993.
She remarried Jean Vyasimanga, himself a widower. Manirambona is his fourth wife. Jean has a lot of trouble with his property in Kiremba, she says. The four hectares he owns are far too small to share among his many children. Moreover part of it is claimed by a former employee.

Photo ©FAO/Giulio Napolitano