Farming in a tough environment: A visit to Rwanda

By Gordon Conway

Visiting farms in Rwanda is an exercise in mountaineering, scrambling sometimes on all fours over great volcanic boulders. But the effort is worth it. As we saw on our visit there in February, farmers in Rwanda are beginning to do well.

The statistics tell a good story. GDP has rebounded with an average annual growth of 7-8% since 2000 and average annual agricultural growth rates reached 5.7% between 2001 and 2012. And you can see the effects on the ground, partly the consequences of a good partnership between NGOs, the private sector and the government. The new minister of agriculture Dr Gerardine Mukeshimana, who gained her PhD in bean genetics from Michigan State University is a good example of President Kagame’s policy of appointing technically qualified ministers. She works on developing new policies while one of her predecessors Dr Daphrose Gahakwa is DDG of the Rwanda Agricultural Board that oversees research, extension and other implementing agencies.

Schadrack, a farmer on TechnoServe’s STRYDE programme, with his tree tomatoes

Farm plots across the country have an average size of 0.6 hectares and tend to be fragmented over several locations. As a result, many households actually farm as little as 0.4 hectares. Farmers use the flat land to grow crops to sell at local markets, and the steeper, more difficult to farm slopes for growing food for household consumption. An increasing population density is putting additional pressure on the scarce land, encouraging people to move on to ever steeper slopes. The mountainous landscape presents significant challenges to farmers. Farming is not only physically more demanding and tiring but the shallow soils found on steep slopes are also prone to erosion and landslides.

Rwandan agrodealer’s shop may still be small, but her ideas are big

By Alice Marks

Odette Dusabuwera in her agrodealer shop

The inability to access inputs is often cited as a major barrier to increasing the productivity of farms and improving the livelihoods of rural farmers. One Acre Fund (OAF), known as Tubura in Rwanda, has served more than 113,500 farmers since it started operations in the country in 2007, and now employs more than 1,400 staff members. One of their programs aims to tackle this barrier by working with agrodealers, providing them with credit for OAF seed and other inputs, such as much-needed fertiliser so that they can stock their shops with good quality products. OAF-supported agrodealers can expect to make US$2000-3000 per year in profit.

On a recent visit to Rwanda, OAF took us to meet Odette Dusabuwera, an agrodealer from Rubengera, in Western Rwanda, to find out how this approach was working for the agrodealers and farmers.

The Last Hunger Season

It is “far better to accommodate dreams than assuage nightmares”

This is a quote taken from Roger Thurow’s book, The Last Hunger Season, one of our favourite books from 2012. It is a record of the lives of four farmers in western Kenya over the course of one year, encompassing both hunger and harvest. The book documents the hardships these farmers face and provides an insight into their lives. While one person can never fully understand the life of another, we do all aspire to the same things: health, wealth, happiness and security.

For the four featured farmers life is about to change. Immediately prior to when the book is set, Rasoa, Leonida, Francis and Zipporah signed up to the One Acre Fund Programme. This programme, set up by Andrew Youn in 2006, provides smallholder farmers in Kenya, Rwanda and Burundi with certified seeds, fertiliser and training, inputs that are paid for by the farmers during the course of the year. Basic in its model, its aim is transformational change, enabling farmers to work their way out of poverty and escape the hunger seasons that come each year. As the quote states it is about supporting farmers in reaching their dreams be they to send their children to a good school, build a greenhouse or start a local business.