The green investments in agro-forestry by Vi Agroforestry in Rwanda continues to improve the lives of thousands of smallholder farmers' families.

Since the turn of the year 2020, the world has been battling an outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Of particular concern is the negative effect of the pandemic on food security and food systems.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently estimated that in 2019, there were 2 billion people in the world who did not have regular access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food, whereof nearly 750 million experienced severe food insecurity. COVID-19 is currently predicted to force more people to go to bed hungry.

The pandemic worsens a situation where the world is already experiencing climate change shocks and other challenges that threaten food systems.

The impacts hit the most vulnerable people including smallholder farmers living on a daily basis without any savings or social protection, exposing them to not only greater economic vulnerability but also to gender-based violence and sexual abuse.

Jean-Marie Vianney Rukundo, the Deputy Country Manager of Vi Agroforestry in Rwanda says that it is very important to increase efforts to support smallholder farmers in more sustainable and resilient land use, particularly agroforestry.

This will in turn contribute to a more resilient and sustainable way of growing food.

"We argue that efforts to safeguard the welfare of the people and secure their access to nutritious food should be a top priority. We need ambitious interventions that secure our food systems from various shocks in the short and long-term,” he says.

Agroforestryincreases ecosystem services such as biodiversity, erosion control, drought resilience, carbon sequestration and soil moisture.

"At the same time, it increases yields of nutritious food, medicine, shade, fuel, fodder, compost material and more,” he explains.

Extensive research, as well as our own long experience from our operations in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Rwanda, proves that farmer families who switch from monoculture to agroforestry are much better off already within a few months, he says.

Vi Agroforestry has been working in Rwanda since 2005, scaling up agroforestry to contribute to food security and more nutritious diets, making a variety of healthy foods available to local people, while at the same time contributing to more sustainable food production systems that are also more resilient to environmental shocks.

Vi Agroforestry's strategy is to reach farmers through their own organizations and groups .

 "The cornerstone of Vi Agroforestry’s work is agroforestry. Our work in the country focuses on improving the lives of smallholder farmers through agroforestry and by strengthening the capacity of farmer organizations. The organization empowers farmer families to reduce poverty, hunger, and deforestation, and contribute to increased biodiversity,” Rukundo says.

Vi Agroforestry has aligned its strategic targets to five of the Sustainable Development Goals (1-No poverty, 2-Zero hunger, 5-Gender, 13-Climate Action, 15-Life on land).

The strategy also has a special focus on women, children and youth.

The organization focuses on gender and women empowerment as women in rural communities are key agents of change.

This is based on the fact that when women and men have equal opportunities, the rural economy grows faster, communities gradually get out of cycles of poverty and general wellbeing of their families improves.

Vi Agroforestry partners with local organisations, supporting them with resources so that they can be strong to better serve smallholder farmers in areas of sustainable agriculture based on agroforestry, agricultural value chains and financial services, system and governance, gender equality and empowerment of women, children and youth, policy and advocacy.

Rukundo says that in Rwanda, the organization works in Northern Province (Districts of Gakenke, Rulindo and Gicumbi), in Southern Province (Districts of Kamonyi and Nyamagabe), Eastern Province (Kayonza district),  and Gasabo District in Kigali city.

A glance at some projects

Vi Agroforestry Rwanda’s work is an ongoing journey that is producing results.

The Vi Agroforestry programme ‘Agroforestry for Livelihood Empowerment (ALIVE)’ is the overall programme that is implemented by partners.

The organization is currently partnering with six-core partner organisations namely; UNICOOPAG, KAB, ZAMUKA, COTUMU, COOPRORIZ and UCOCARU and one strategic partner-INADES organization and technical partner-BENISHYAKA organization, who are implementing different projects.

The 2020 ALIVE programme report indicates that the partners have a total membership of 12,384 of whom 43 percent are male, 41 percent are female, seven percent are male youth, and nine percent are female youth as well as 1,311 kids grouped in school environmental clubs.

"Vi Agroforestry team has accelerated its efforts to provide relevant and strategic support to the partner organisations with the objectives of achieving more,” Rukundo said.

Results from a progress survey in all partners shows that more than 85% of the set targets have been met.

The high implementation rate has led to good results in the diverse areas of ALIVE intervention.

Most of the partners have developed business and value addition, he noted.

Gender, youth mainstreaming

The importance of gender equality, women empowerment, particularly women participation in leadership and decision-making, is at the core of Vi Agroforestry’s work. Vi Agroforestry works with partners across four countries in East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Rwanda) to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment at organisational and household level.

"Through our partner organisations, Vi Agroforestry provides technical support towards advancing women participation in leadership and decision making at all levels of society as well as empowering women through targeted efforts such as the use of the household roadmap that promotes joint decision making at household level. Vi Agroforestry mainstreams gender in all programmes, projects and organisational practices, "he noted.

So far, gender mainstreaming and meaningful participation of women and young people in leadership and decision-making at partner organisation level has been remarkable and Vi Agroforestry continues to train women and support them to establish their own enterprises.

These enterprises include handcraft, briquettes making, fruits and vegetable, beekeeping and mushroom enterprises.

To ensure gender equity, Vi Agroforestry has also trained farmer families on joint household decision-making.

The organization says that more women have been elected to board positions and 1 to supervisory in one of its partner committees.

School children are also an important part of our work. Vi Agroforestry pays special attention to empowering them to take responsibility and conserve the environment.It is in this context that Vi Agroforestry trained them in all aspects of the environment through environmental clubs.”

Agroforestry increases productivity

By employing Sustainable Agriculture and Land Management methods, farmers can continue to develop their farming methods, despite drought and flooding, and ensure that families have sufficient access to food.

Rukundo noted that sustainable agriculture based on agroforestry, has proven to increase agricultural productivity of smallholder farmers.

The land under sustainable land agriculture management practices also increased by 26 percent of the total farmland; and over 134 hectares of land were restored through construction of terraces and creation of anti-erosive ditches.

Farmers were also trained on use of briquettes for cooking and wood-saving stoves,  sustainable agriculture and land management practices, grafting and pricking out which has improved the capacity of farmers in climate mitigation and adaptation.

Each year Vi Agroforestry organizes a tree-planting campaign together with her partners, to contribute towards fighting climate change effects and soil erosion as well as plant fruit trees to improve nutrition and food security.

In the year 2020, Vi Agroforestry and partners planted over 1.8 Million of agroforestry trees in Rwanda.To date, Vi Agroforestry and partners have planted over 16.4 million with different programmes by Vi Agroforestry since 2005  benefitting the  districts of  Gakenke, Gasabo, Gicumbi, Kamonyi, Kayonza, Nyamagabe, Karongi, Bugesera and Rulindo, he added.

As a method, agroforestry has been well-known in many traditional contexts since a very long time.

Yet, the method remains grossly underutilized. The main challenge of adopting agroforestry among many smallholder farming families is the lack of a clear policy framework to define, host and spearhead a scaling up.

Agroforestry is currently not coordinated properly in many countries.

 Consequently, farmers struggle to access inputs, finance, extension- and advisory services, as well as markets. Policymakers can rectify the situation and create an enabling environment for adopting and scaling up agroforestry to meet food and nutritional security goals in communities and societies.

"We call on policymakers, the private sector and civil society to help agroforestry take its rightful place in policies, plans and budgets to secure the right to food in a time of crisis. To aid in this urgent task, we invite the media to reach out to policymakers as well as producers and consumers with information about the benefits of agroforestry. As governments craft their development blueprints – locally, regionally and globally – we urge them to give agroforestry priority, and to actively engage agroforestry producers to help shape sound policies and practices for everyone,” he made the case.

The organization contribution is in line with Rwanda’s target of cultivating agroforestry trees on 85 percent of cultivable land.

Vi Agroforestry is a Swedish development organisation that enables women and men farmers living in poverty to improve their livelihood while preserving the environment through agroforestry technologies. It works in Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania – four countries that are severely affected by deforestation and climate change and that for many years have endured its devastating effects on both humans and nature.

 Where trees grow people grow!