23 June 2014, Burera District, Rwanda -  The fields of Burera District, Northern Rwanda, with their rich soil and advantageous climate have a promising agricultural potential.  Agriculture has been the backbone of the region’s economy for centuries. However, as in most parts of the country, Burera District is faced with multiple challenges.

The vast majority of farmers within the district used to be smallholder subsistence farmers, producing diverse but limited products, essentially for household consumption. Excess produce from harvests used to be sold on the market in raw form, without much added value. As a consequence, much untapped resources remained, leaving the population of Burera District with little and low level nutritious food.

Maize post-harvest secured

With the support of FAO, local farmers’ cooperatives were strengthened to facilitate farming and provide added value to their productions.  One of such is the Ihute Udasigara (Hurry, don’t stay behind!) Co-operative at Musebeya within the Burera District.

The Co-operative has 55 members of which 33 are women. “With the intervention and partnership with FAO, this co-operative has acquired a maize drying room, increased harvest from 1 to 3 to 4 tonnes per ha, gained linkages to financing and more profitable markets, increased profitability by almost 200% (we were selling a kilo of maize for 70RwF now we sell at 200RwF)”, said Chantal Nyirafaranga, one of the members of the co-operative.

By pooling their resources and deciding on the growth and harvest of a single, manageable crop (maize), the farmers have been able to secure larger harvest and larger profits. This has enabled them to overcome one of the major constraints facing individual maize farmers: the lack of storage space and poor drying technology. The cooperative’s newly acquired drying spaces now allow for the storage of quality maize grain, ready for further processing.

With profits from their sales at the market feeding back into their production, members can purchase inputs such as fertilizers and insecticides. With training and information sessions and the purchase of simple farming tools, the cooperative has started extracting maize kernels and processing their own maize product “maize rice”.

“Maize rice is our main meal here as it’s more economical for us compared to imported rice. It is easy to digest by infants and sick or elder people. I serve this with beans and carrot sauce to my family. It’s easy and quick to prepare and uses less charcoal or firewood”, said Madam Chantal.    

For a transformed agriculture

After the cooperative has dried the grain, it either sells it to consumers on the open market, or to the private sector like Samapromil (Sabina Maize Processing Mill), a maize processing factory owned by Sabina Sinzamuhara.

Sabina Sinzamuhara of SAMAPROMI is a former primary school teacher; she decided to abandoned teaching and to start Agribusiness entrepreneurship. She is proud to tell that she is progressing:

“Inspired by a radio programme promoting agribusiness and complemented by government programme on self-employment and jobs creation, I realized the dream of an agribusiness entrepreneur. My mill processes 2 tonnes of maize per day at peak into 3 main products; Maize rice, maize flour and maize feed and supply to the ordinary markets, schools and animal husbandry farmers. I concentrate on maize due to the high level of post-harvest loss of the crop in this district. FAO identified me after setting up and linked me with maize farming co-operatives for supplies of quality raw maize grain and also for end market access. I also benefited from FAO training on business planning and management. This has solidified my business for the past 1year I have been in operation. I am well promoted and linked to markets due to FAO continuous partnership and referrals”.

FAO-supported food security project in Rwanda is a regional project implemented in the cross-border districts of Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo. The objective of the project is to improve farmer’s food security and cash income through intensification, value addition and commercialization of agriculture and livestock productions.

The project executed in two (2) phases from November 2007 to December 2014 is funded by the government of Italy through FAO Global Trust Fund for Food Security. At the AU Summit, this week, in Malabo, Equatorial Guinea, ‘Transforming Africa’s Agriculture for Shared Prosperity and Improved Livelihoods through Harnessing Opportunities for Inclusive Growth and Sustainable Development’ will be the focus of a Debate to which the Director-General of FAO, José Graziano da Silva, has been invited to take part.

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Contact: Ewurama Greenslade, Communications, FAO Regional Office for Africa, Email: [email protected]