Rwanda: Various livestock actors brainstorm the journey in poultry and piggery value chain

By The Inspirer Writer.

Various livestock actors discuss the achievements, lessons learned, and the way forward in advancing poultry and piggery value chains in Rwanda.

These actors that include the ministries, key government institutions, Deliverers of innovation that require capacity development, Livestock research and development projects as well as the Private Sector discussed these issues in Kigali on March 28, 2023 during the Final reflection workshop of the TAP-AIS project.

The workshop has been organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization by the United Nations (FAO) Rwanda in partnership with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI).

The TAP-AIS project supports the Tropical Agriculture Platform (TAP) to strengthen capacities to innovate in national agricultural innovation systems (AIS) in the context of climate-relevant, productive, and sustainable transformation of agriculture and food systems in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Pacific.

Addressing participants to the workshop, Ms. Coumba Sow, FAO Representative said that the final reflection workshop will be an opportunity to discuss about the way forward with regard to priorities and entry points for strengthening the innovations of Rwanda’s small livestock subsector.

He also said that the recommendations from the workshop will serve as the basis for the livestock strategy and the next edition of PSTA in pipeline.

The workshop aims at sharing and reflect on TAP-AIS Rwanda achievements and learnings in the livestock subsector, discussing how TAP-AIS outputs and learnings can be integrated and considered in the national agenda for the small livestock sector, and catalyzing collaboration and partnerships among stakeholders in Rwanda’s small livestock sector and associated value chains.

It also aims at sharing and reflecting on TAP-AIS Rwanda’s achievements, and exhibit livestock products that came out from innovation.

The workshop discussed how project outputs can be integrated and considered in the national agenda for the small livestock subsector in Rwanda.

various poultry and piggery value chain actors have exhibited their products, as a result of innovations. The exhibition includes but not be limited to capacity development outputs such as delivering pig semen using drones, production of black solder fly powder as a substitution of soybean in animal feeds and proteins and vitamins for animal feeds among others.

Jean Claude Ndorimana, DG, Animal Resources Development in MINAGRI said commended the efforts by FAO for its contribution to the development of Agriculture sector, particularly livestock.

He said that the sector needs better data and reliable information on the livestock subsector to accelerate innovations.

In order to have an evidence-based capacity development, TAP-AIS Rwanda carried out an AIS assessment (AIS report is part of the workshop package) of the country’s small livestock sub-sector, with a focus on poultry and piggery value chains and on animal feeds.

The study identified organizational and policy-related challenges in the small livestock innovation system which hamper innovations (copies of policy briefs available as part of the workshop package). Based on capacity gaps identification, capacities of value chains were strengthened in various functional skills, such as (i) agricultural innovation platform establishment, (ii) competitive funding proposal development and resource mobilization strategies, coaching and mentoring sessions on leadership, etc.

During the workshop, two policy briefs have been launched while enabling stakeholders to exhibit and showcase their progress-to date in delivering innovations.

theinspirerpublications@gmail.com