Farmers in Eastern Province districts are beginning to prefer extensive maize farming to millet, a hitherto tradition crop that every farmer cultivated.

This comes after the Ministry of Agriculture promoted crop intensification land consolidation programmes where every district was given a particular crop to grow.

Farmers in the province told The New Times that they took long to embrace the change because they were used to growing traditional crops.

However, it is evident that the farmers have since embraced the maize crop, because large farms of maize are now found on hectares of land where millet used to be grown.

"We used to grow millet extensively and production would exceed what the people needed. We at times could just sell millet at give away prices, since there were no enough buyers,” said Damascene Murekezi, a farmer in Ngoma District.

Nipomscene Habanabakize, a farmer in Kirehe District, said they are currently benefitting from high-yielding, fast-maturing hybrid maize seeds that were availed to them by the government.

"It was not easy for us to change from millet to growing maize. You know millet doesn’t only offer bread to eat, but also acts in production of traditional beer. The beer is used in a number of ways…in weddings, household drink and in several rituals,” he said.

"So, the change was understandably not easy. But we are on the right track, and have started benefitting from large-scale maize growing. There is ready market, and, with the Rwanda Agriculture Board providing hybrid seeds, productivity has increased,” he added.

Authorities, too, acknowledge that farmers have understood that growing maize was more profitable than the region’s traditional crops like millet and potatoes.

Agricultural experts said it was not always easy for all the farmers to immediately embrace change. But they also maintain that awareness was helpful in the effort.

Awareness was done using examples of those who embraced the change through study tours to other areas as a benchmark.

"Campaign to start growing maize was met with great resistance from the farmers. Local farmers have been growing millet on their farms for centuries, the resistance was, thus expected,” Nathalie Niyonagira, the Kirehe District agriculture officer, said.

"The good news, however, is that they have fully embraced maize growing and are enjoying the profits accrued.”

stephen.rwembeho@newtimes.co.rw