Minister Musafiri Urges Kayonza Fruit Farmers To Increase Production

Elias Hakizimana Jun 17, 2023 0 Comments

By Elias Hakizimana.

Rwanda’s Minister for Agriculture and Animal Resources Dr. Ildephonse Musafiri has urged fruits farmers in Kayonza District to preserve the achievements in fruits farming and make it worthy for economic growth, poverty reduction and fighting malnutrition.

Musafiri was on Friday, June 16, 2023, addressing 200 farmer field school (FFS) master trainers and facilitators from Murundi, Murama and Remera II sectors who graduated after being given an intensive training and facilitation skills on FFS approach through the Kayonza irrigation and integrated watershed management project (KIIWP) funded by the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD).

He advised them to preserve the fruit orchard that hosts over 400,000 trees on 1,150 hectares, comprising of 160,000 mango trees, 100,000 avocado trees, 60,000 citrus trees and 60,000 jackfruit trees.

**Minister for Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Ildephonse Musafiri handing over a certificate to a FFS facilitator.**

“The certificates you are awarded today is an added value, this justifies the knowledge you have got in fruit growing and do not take it for granted, take care of the role of these fruits trees, get the best use of KIIWP project’s interventions and strive for a next step to ensure sustainability of this initiative in the next 5 years,” Musafiri said.

Since its establishment, the project is contributing a lot towards poverty reduction in the drought prone Eastern Province Rwanda.

Musafiri recommended farmers to continue investing efforts in conserving the fruits and to increase the production for domestic consumption in order to fight malnutrition and for the market to get money to invest in other income-generating activities related to farming.

Through KIIWP project, the farmers were given irrigation facilities and other interventions, which the minister said will help them to take this kind of farming to the next level.

***100,000 avocado trees are targeted through the project.***

“Think of Agriculture as a business that can help you to get far at a very good level to secure wealth,” Musafiri said.

The newly trained persons are ready to operate as FFS master trainers and facilitators. It is expected that they will act as champions towards the sustainability of planted fruit trees, the ownership by farmers and grooming of fruit trees industry in Rwanda.

Isaie Gatera, a trained farmer field school facilitator from Kinunga village, Kamvumba cell, Remera II sector has 1,500 avocado trees. He told The Inspirer that it was an unimaginable opportunity to be involved in the project as he knew the role of avocado growing before.

“I had my avocado tree that generates Rwf60,000 per year, it helped me to pay school frees for my son from primary to secondary private schools, I gained many training opportunities from KIIWP and I managed to plant 1,500 avocado trees that will be generating Rwf9million annually once the yield is ready,” Gatera said.

**Isaie Gatera planted 1,500 avocado trees that will be generating Rwf9million annually once the yield is ready.**

Alphonsine is another FFS facilitator, she said that they got complete training sessions on how to plant a fruit tree. “We were trained on everything about fruit tree planting, the use of compost and pest management; we are ready to share this knowledge to our fellow farmers,”

The trained staff as master trainers have got sufficient knowledge and practices in organizing FFS activities which allowed them to train and assist in parallel FFS facilitators who at the same time have been facilitating their respective groups.

The graduation marks the end of the session with FFS. It is usually organized by the farmers, facilitators and the coordinating office.

**Alphonsine speaking during the graduation ceremony.**

Minister Musafiri recognized the efforts put in the FFS by the farmers and facilitators. The initiative is also a forum to pass on the lessons learnt at the FFS to the public and administrators in order to create interest to more farmers to join the next planned FFS in the locality.

“We will continue to help these farmers to make further steps forwards, we plan to find an investor who will buy and add value to their fruits,” Musafiri noted.

The graduation will provide the FFS members with an opportunity to display and share the results of their participatory comparative experiments and other experiences, motivate neighboring non-member farmers with the result of new technologies demonstrated in The Trainer of Trainers (ToT) model.