High food costs: Rwanda has tamed the crisis

Nothing is more degrading than hunger. It breeds anger, social disintegration, health and economic decline— Ban Ki- Moon During the Christmas and New Year period, families are traveling from Kigali to rural areas to enjoy the holidays with their families and friends. Thus, creating increased demand for foodstuffs and other commodities in rural markets. The high demand which is not backed by increasing suppies has triggered price increases. Local traders interviewed by The New Times at Byumba blame the high food prices to high fuel costs. These traders claim that they incur high transport costs ferrying their agricultural produce from villages. Even petty traders, traveling on foot to Byumba market, carrying vegetables on their heads tomatoes and leading goats, have hiked the prices of their foodstuffs and goats on the pretext that fuel prices are high. “Fuel is a problem”, said Uwera Mukamusoni, a tomatoes trader at Byumba market. There are a number of factors that triggered the recent food prices increase across the world. Among them are low yields, fluctuating climatic conditions, the use of maize and other crops for the production of ethanol and other bio-fuels and the rise in the price of fuel. At an emergency world leaders’ summit on the food crisis in Rome in June, UN Secretary General Ban Ki- Moon said, “Nothing is more degrading than hunger. It breeds anger, social disintegration, health and economic decline”. Among the main causes of high food prices include low crop yields brought about by exhausted soils that lack the nutrients needed to increase crop production; this problem is prevalent in many African countries. This is due to ancient farming methods; these methods entail the use of traditional farm implements and no effort to protect soil erosion, which has resulted in the washing away of fertile top soils over time. Rwanda has already embarked on increasing crop production through the use of artificial and natural fertilisers. Terrace construction campaigns to curb soil erosion country wide are major government priorities. At a recent evaluation of Vision 2020 Sector development projects at Rubaya Sector of Gicumbi district, Minister of Local government Protais Musoni accompanied by the visiting head of the European Union in Rwanda David McRae advised residents to increase agricultural production through terracing and application of modern farming methods. “Government is committed to transforming Vision 2020 Sectors to be self sustaining economically”, said Musoni. Similar recommendations were made by Rwandan minister of Agriculture Christopher Bazivamo during Gicumbi district Farmers’ Day celebrations. Minister Bazivamo called upon local farmers to practice modern. “Rwanda Patriotic Front’s political manifesto is to eradicate poverty among Rwandan people and uplift the economy through modern agriculture and exotic livestock breeding”, said Bazivamo. According to the director of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington Joachim Von Braun the use of maize and other food crops for ethanol and bio- fuels for the transport industry in developed countries have largely contributed to the rise in food prices. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has cautioned that high food prices could continue for at least a decade and that the long era of world food surpluses and cheap exports that began with the “Green Revolution” in Asia in the 1960s may be over . FAO further says other African governments have tried to reduce prices for basic foods in a number of ways. In Senegal, which relies on imports for half of the cereals it consumes, the government announced subsidies of 40 per cent on wheat flour, suspended food tariffs and imposed price controls. On the other hand, the United Republic of Tanzania has lifted duties on an additional 300,000 tonnes of maize imports and banned food exports. Finally, the Agricultural outlook published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation (OECD) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that the populations of as many as 22 countries are at risk of malnutrition over the next decade. Ends