Asiatic Agricultural Industries, a Singapore-based agro-company, has partnered with local businessmen to bring new crop protection technologies. The company is currently working closely with a Kigali-based company, Business and Management Consult, to also increase Irish potatoes yields. In an interview with The New Times, the Managing Director of Asiatic Agricultural Industries, Laurence Chan, said the ultimate goal of his company’s involvement in Rwanda is to support farming communities to improve their crop and animal yields. “Our objective is to use our products to increase yields; in other words, we use agro-product chemicals to make crops healthier and protect them from pests,” said Chan. “We looked at the Rwandan market and realised that with the use of agro chemicals, we will be able to increase crop protection and crop production. But to achieve this, we need to educate users to use the right amount of dosage so as not to harm the crops”. Chan explained that they opted to focus a lot of attention on potatoes due to the assorted diseases affecting the crop, “We want to educate users on quality usage of crop protection chemicals. Statistics indicate that, without the use of agro chemicals in general crops, the yields are only 30 percent of its potential and with the use of these chemicals, the yields can increase by 70-80 percent,” Chan added. Asiatic Agricultural Industries is currently guiding users on safe use of the crop protection chemicals without harming the environment or the user. The representative of Business and Management Consult, Dr. Anicet Karasira, said the chemicals are used to prevent the spread of pests from one crop to another. “We visited the Singaporean company last year and we picked interest in exploiting their products. So far, we have shipped in one container and the results we are getting are impressive,” he observed. “We have invited them here to come and educate farmers and distributors how to use the chemicals,” added Karasira edwin.musoni@newtimes.co.rw
