Law governing agric board seeks to bolster research

Members of Parliament’s Standing Committee on Agriculture, Livestock and Environment want the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) to work more efficiently to benefit agriculture and livestock sectors. They made the remarks yesterday while examining a new draft law establishing RAB and determining its mission, organisation and functioning. The chairperson of the Committee, Ignatienne Nyirarukundo, said RAB has had inefficiencies in its operations, necessitating revision of the current law. The current law was enacted in 2010 after the merger of three institutions namely the Rwanda Agricultural Research Institute (ISAR), Rural Agricultural Development Authority (RADA), and Rwanda Animal Resources Development Authority (RARDA). MPs said, among other duties, RAB has to promote agricultural research and extension. The Minister for Agriculture and Animal Resources, Geraldine Mukeshimana, said RAB carrying out research and extension services together was not a problem, rather the issue was lack of proper management of the two. RAB director general Mark Cyubahiro Bagabe noted that after the merger of the institutions to form RAB, workers continued to act as though they were in their respective previous institutions. “This resulted into lack of harmony and collaboration towards achieving common agricultural goals,” he said, citing the research as one of the affected components. Nyirarukundo urged RAB workers to work together as one body to achieve more results. Bagabe explained that they now want to develop value chain system whereby a researcher will work in the whole chain of a given crop or livestock to ensure success. MP Nyirarukundo added that the new legislation should clearly spell out promotion of research and extension of research findings to the people both for agriculture and livestock sectors among RAB’s core duties. She noted that about 27 functions of the Rwanda Agriculture Board could be condensed into seven or eight. She stressed the need for research institutions to work in a free and effective manner in order to become self-reliant in terms of seeds. “We might need to buy seeds from neighbouring countries but it should be only under circumstances beyond our control,” she noted. Producing seeds locally would reduce costs and ensure reliable seeds all the time,” she said, adding that even the same applies to livestock sector for insemination, medicine and other requirement to ensure quality livestock production. Nyirarukundo called on research stations to find ways of addressing the issue of crop diseases affecting cassava and coffee, while coming up with innovations to increase crop productivity. “Agriculture and livestock can improve people’s welfare and play a big role in the development of the country. If improved productivity is ensured, it can even lower the number of vulnerable people who need free health insurance and other needs from government,” she said. “We cannot increase the land we have in the country, but we can increase produce on the same land if good farming practices are adopted.” Decentralising farming services The lawmaker called for empowerment of farmers in good farming practices. She observed that the community health workers approach that is being used in the health sector could be applied in agriculture and livestock sector as well. “Community health workers in the health sector showed us that it is possible, where a person is able to carry out basic treatment yet they did not study medicine. We can have such community workers for livestock and crops if farmers are empowered with relevant skills,” she said. Addressing bureaucracy issue Under the draft law, the issue of bureaucracy requiring RAB research staff in provinces to travel to Kigali to seek most of the services could also be addressed. Minister Mukeshimana said there is need for RAB’s provincial zones to have autonomy in getting some operational services, such as signing mission forms. The draft law also seeks to give agriculture and livestock researchers a special status. About 41 per cent of farmers in the country now use improved seeds, against the set target of 100 per cent by 2017, according to figures from the ministry. Rwanda targets agriculture growth of 8.5 per cent in 2017/18 from the current 5.5 per cent. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Law governing agric board seeks to bolster research