One Hundred Years Later, Reviving a ‘Jewel’ Deep in the Jungle
Workers harvest fruit from palm trees on Feronia Inc.’s Lokutu plantation.
Photographer: Tom Wilson/Bloomberg
The equatorial sun pierces the forest canopy as two laborers manipulate a machete at the end of a long pole to cut hard red fruits from the top of a soaring palm. The heavy bunches are collected by hand and trucked to a mill, where palm oil is extracted before beginning its journey down the Congo River.
The men work for the local unit of Feronia Inc., an obscure London-based company that’s taking on long odds: trying to build a business in one of the least commercially friendly countries in the world. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country recently torn by civil war, the goal is to revive commercial agriculture—and sell shares on the London Stock Exchange in as little as 18 months.