In response to farmers’ long cited challenges of shortage of animal feeds that are expensive and sometimes substandard, Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB)  has said efforts are being pulled together to ensure the availability of animal feeds.

During the conference of youth in Agribusiness, Theonestine Iribagiza, a poultry farmer hailing from Bugesera District, said that they are still facing challenges mainly high cost of animal feeds.

 "High cost of poultry feeds is a big concern that we are still facing. We would like to request that the government intervenes either decreasing the prices of feeds or increasing the price of eggs,” she noted.

Solange Uwituze, the Deputy Director-General of Animal Research and Technology Transfer at RAB responded that new strategies are being devised to address the issue.

 "We are devising different strategies so that farmers no longer face a shortage of animal feeds. We are discussing with animal feeds manufacturers in order to work together and facilitate them to get raw materials such maize and soya that can be available at affordable prices so that the animal feeds they produce become affordable to farmers,” she said.

She added that farmers are also being engaged in growing crop varieties reserved for animal feeds.

"We want to work with farmers so that they establish farms for growing maize and soya varieties particularly reserved for animal feeds production and then also reserve farms for maize and soya varieties for human consumption,” she said.

Youth in livestock sector

Considering the growth of livestock sector, youth and young women have been urged to engage in livestock agribusiness as a way creating jobs in the sector.

Jean Baptiste Hategekimana, the president of Rwanda Youth in Agribusiness Forum as well as Rwanda Chapter of African Youth in Livestock, Fisheries and Aquaculture Incubation Network (AYL-FAIN), said that this newly launched network in Africa is a platform to guide the youth who to invest in livestock agribusiness.

The African Incubation Network was established in July, 2017 in Dakar, Senegal and launched in Cairo, Egypt in July 2018.

 The network brings together youth from the 55 Pan African countries to establish business incubation hubs at country level and 5 regional hubs in North, East, Central, West and Southern Africa.

The long-term vision is to see African youth own agribusinesses in animal resources contribute to poverty reduction and food security by creating wealth and jobs.

He said that the Launch of Rwanda Chapter aims at creating jobs and wealth by stimulating government and stakeholders interventions targeting women and youths in animal resources sector.

He highlighted that Rwanda is home to 2,923,706 heads of goats, 664,703 of sheep, 1,716,438 of pigs and 272,725 chicken for a human population of around 12.5 million people which should be a business opportunity for young people.

"These figures result in 0.3 small ruminants and 0.4 chicken per person which is very little compared to other countries.

Thus, livestock sector in Rwanda need to be upgraded in order to meet animal product consumption demand of the growing population,” he said.

Figures show that it is projected that human population in Rwanda will increase by 38 per cent and will reach up to 16.3 million in 2031/32 from 11.8 million in 2016/17 (NISR 2014).

Hategekimana said therefore there is a need to increase future meat per capita consumption.

"For youth and women to benefits from this, we must be engaged in livestock agribusiness considering that youths represent a big percentage of the population,” he reiterated.