IMPROVING AGRICULTURAL YIELDS IN THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO USING MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHMS

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of agricultural yields in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) using machine learning algorithms. The study is based on around 30,000 records covering several years of agricultural production. Each record includes variables such as seed type, climatic conditions (temperature, rainfall and humidity), soil characteristics (pH, nutrients), farming practices (fertilizer use, irrigation) and yields obtained. The data comes from a variety of sources, including METTELSAT, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and WorldClim for climate data, and the DRC Ministry of Agriculture and the FAO for soil and agricultural data. The algorithms evaluated include linear regression, random forest regression, Gradient Boosting Machines (GBM), Support Vector Machines (SVM), and Artificial Neural Networks (ANN). The performance of the algorithms is measured using metrics such as MSE, MAE, RMSE, R² Score and MAPE on three separate case studies (Farm A, Farm B and Farm C). The results show that artificial neural networks (ANNs) perform best, with MSE ranging from 600 to 850, MAE from 12 to 17, RMSE from 24.49 to 29.15, R² Score from 0.92 to 0.95, and MAPE from 8.5% to 10.7%. Next came GBM, random forest regression, SVM and finally linear regression. These results highlight the potential of machine learning algorithms to improve agricultural yield forecasts in the DRC.