Rwf 22.8 billion PSDAG-USAID Agricultural Funded project closed on a high note

By Elias Hakizimana.

The United States has concluded its funded Private Sector Driven Agricultural Project (PSDAG) after five years of its implementation in transforming Rwanda’s Agriculture.

The Project came to end on June 26, 2019 and its achievements were officially celebrated in Kigali by different beneficiaries, stakeholders and representatives of Rwanda’s Private Sector Federation (PSF).

U.S Ambassador to Rwanda Peter Vrooman said that the project was fruitful to cut off post-harvest losses by helping farmers fight plant diseases such as the fall army-worm, etc.

“I have been here for UN just for a couple of months, agribusiness was improved in technology and investment in irrigation, better seeds that are drought resistant for some places that have too much rain, finally, I would say that PSDAG program and was fruitful and other programs will continue to Hinga Weze to mentor farmers to improve crop storage to reduce post-harvest loss,” Vrooman said.

The USAID-PSDAG five-year-project was Rwf 22.8 billion with the objective to increase investment in Rwanda’s Agriculture sector, increase famers’ incomes and advance the vision 2020 goal set by the Government of Rwanda in transforming agriculture into market-oriented, competitive and high value sector.

François Nsengiyumva, Chairman of farmers in PSF said that one of the challenges hindering agriculture development is climate change and lack of financial support as the banks are still reluctant to finance Agriculture project.

“We discussed this problem with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), agriculture requires long-term investment, we are requesting for a strategy to finance Agriculture in a special way, we need affordable and much money at a low interest rate to practice sustainable Agribusiness,” Nsengiyumva noted.

Michel Sebera, the Permanent Secretary in MINAGRI lauded the efforts by USAID to accelerate the growth of Rwanda’s Agribusiness through the concluded PSDAG project.

The project has risen investment in Rwanda’s Agriculture by Rwf 24.6 billion and domestic and export sales by Rwf 63.8 billion and also helped Agribusiness sector to get loans of over Rwf 23.7 billion.

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