AgriProFocus Rwanda in partnership with HortInvest Project, National Agriculture Export Development Board (NAEB), and farmers' organisations have called for measures to subsidise vegetable seed prices by for instance encouraging domestic production so that they can be accessed by more smallholder farmers.

They made the appeal on Friday, November 20, 2020 during a meeting of stakeholders in horticulture subsector to discuss issues and opportunities around the seed industry in Rwanda.

The meeting held in Kigali was called on by AgriProFocus Rwanda.

The objective of the meeting is to create awareness around the need for local vegetable seeds and advocating for vegetable seed units and related business opportunities as well as drawing actionable agenda for 2021 and who will take the lead for each activity agreed upon.

AgriProFocus is an international multi-stakeholder network in the agri-food sector.

Currently, farmers are complaining of the high cost of seeds, a situation that locks out many smallholder farmers from cultivating high-value vegetable crops such as chilli and French beans, which relatively generate higher income than other crops.

For instance, Nina Nyirampeta, a chilli farmer in Rulindo District said that 200 grams of seed of chilli called Red Thunder that can be planted on a hectare cost Rwf732,000, which smallholder farmers cannot afford. These figures imply that a kilogramme of the chilli seed is over Rwf3.6 million.

And, when other inputs such as pesticide and irrigation (during dry period) are factored in, the investments become prohibitive for the smallholder farmers.

Nyirampeta told The New Times that the imported chilli seed is originally developed from France.

"Chilli is profitable when a farmer has money to buy and grow it by complying with good farming practices. One can invest Rwf3 million in the chilli farming per hectare, and harvest up to Rwf7 million from sales. The problem is that some farmers do not have means to manage it,” she said, calling for subisidies to help smallholders to meet its expense.

The above-mentioned meeting heard that because of the high reliance on imports, there were reported cases of vegetable seeds shortage during the period of Covid-19 pandemic which disrupted the supply chain, and adversely affected the farmers who wanted to grow them.

Alex Uwizeye, Country Coordinator of AgriProFocus said that people who interacted with it  voiced concern that the imported vegetable seeds are expensive, and that they are not sure of their quality [as they were not first tried locally before cultivation by farmers].

"This meeting intended to awaken all the concerned people so that we start considering how we can start the journey to make some products in Rwanda, especially vegetable seeds,” Uwizeye said, pointing out that domestic production of seeds could prevent the shortage that might result from shocks or and circumstances.

Speaking through a video documentary produced by AgriProFocus that was played during the meeting, the Minister of State at the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Jean-Chrysostome Ngabitsinze said that the country is considering ways to produce [some of the imported] vegetable seeds locally.

"We are looking for ways the vegetable seeds can be produced within the country in order to lower their cost because when they are imported, they involve additional costs associated with freight charges, and often, the expenses on quality assurance,” he said.

He indicated that apart from helping farmers to ease farmers’ access on the seeds, local production move would also create opportunities for the locals along the seed value chain including trade.

He said that vegetable crops are much needed worldwide, hence having potential to improve the lives of the farmers, and spur Rwanda’s export growth.

In the fiscal year 2018/2019, vegetable exports amounted to 26,751 tonnes which generated$15.63 million in revenues, according to the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB)’s 2018/2019 annual report.

That was higher than 20,635 tonnes which were exported in the same period in the previous fiscal year (2017/2018) valued at $12.38 million.