Seeds for crops such as French beans (also called green beans), chilli; pesticides or fungicides and animal feeds are not subsidised yet, meaning they remain expensive.
This makes the prices for commodities more expensive and also affects the profitability of farmers, especially smallholders.
Emile Munyemana, a chilli and French bean farmer from Rwamagana District, told The New Times that about 44 kilogrammes of French bean seeds which cost Rwf660,000 are needed per hectare, indicating that a kilogramme is Rwf15,000 from agro-input dealers in Kigali.
"Rwf660,000 for seeds per hectare implies that the input is costly,” he said, adding that these crops also need pesticides and other inputs.
The main disease that makes farmers incur losses on French beans, he said, is anthracnose which is caused by fungi during the rainy season.
Locally known as ‘Nyirakadori, anthracnose impairs the quality of the beans and reduces their yields.
While a fungicide under the brand name Ortva is effective to tackle such a disease, its high costs is somehow prohibitive to smallholder farmers.
Munyemana indicated that they pay Rwf148,000 for Ortva top (best applied seven days before harvest), and Rwf159,000 Ortva 250 (applied three days before harvest). These fungicides are imported.
"Those are huge expenses,” he said.
For chilli, he said that the varieties grown in the country include bird eye chilli called red thunder, and hot pepper called habanero.
For red thunder, 200 grammes of seeds are needed per hectare and they cost Rwf732,000 while for habanero chilli, the cost is Rwf960,000 for 20,000 seeds.
"The cost of production is too high…the subsidies are much needed. We are shifting from subsistence farming to commercial farming. But, we cannot achieve that when seeds are expensive compared to the returns on investment [on the local market],” he said.
Issues such as those indicated above pushed the Parliament’s Chamber of Deputies to request the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) to put in place strategies that help farmers to get seeds, pesticides for crops and medication for livestock, animal feed in an affordable manner within six months.
This is one of the resolutions that the Chamber of Deputies made on Monday, November 23, as legislators adopted the report on MPs’ field visits around the country to oversee the government’s activities in socio-economic sectors, with a focus on response strategies to the Covid-19 pandemic.
On October 30, Jean Claude Shirimpumu, a pig farmer and chairperson of the Rwanda Pig Farmers’ Association said that a kilogramme of animal feed costs between Rwf300 and Rwf400, indicating that the difference in pricing depends on the age of the pig.
Feeds for the piglets are more expensive as they contain nutrients to foster their growth.
Indeed, he the cost of animal feeds has been on a steady rise over the last couple of years.
In 2017, the same farmer said that the price of a kilogramme of animal feed ranged from Rwf200 and Rwf250 a kilogramme,
Andrew Butare, the Chairperson of Rwanda Poultry Industry Association, told The New Times that prices for animal feed fluctuate depending on the availability of raw materials such as maize and soya, which is determined by the harvest and the lean seasons.
"If there is investment in buying maize and store it in large silos enough to last up to six months, it can help a lot to stabilise the prices,” he said.
Vincent Havugimana, President of the Federation of Irish Potato farmers’ cooperatives in Rwanda told The New Times that potato seeds are expensive, which makes smallholder farmers struggle to grow the staple crop.
A kilogramme of potato seeds is Rwf700, according to the latest price. Yet, he said that between two and three tonnes of potato seeds are needed per hectare, implying investments of between Rfw1.4 million and Rwf2.1 million in seeds.