The Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Ildephonse Musafiri, is this afternoon appearing before the Lower House’s afternoon plenary sitting to respond to queries regarding how soil erosion is negatively affecting crop yields countrywide.

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The soil erosion challenge in addition to issues related to the use of terraces for increased farm productivity on hillsides, were identified by lawmakers during their countrywide tours. In August, lawmakers were concerned that more than one million hectares were at high risk of soil erosion.

ALSO READ: Legislators express concern as a million hectares face soil erosion

As a result, parliament decided to summon the Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources to provide insights into erosion control strategies, scaling up terracing efforts, and optimising farm output on existing terraced areas.

According to a State of Soil Erosion Control in Rwanda May 2022 report, more than 745,000 hectares of agricultural land in Rwanda are potentially eroded every year. The report was produced by the Rwanda Water Resources Board (RWB) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with support from the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

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Using the reference year of 2021, farming season A, the report revealed that over three million tonnes of crop produce are estimated to be lost seasonally (6 million tonnes annually) due to severe erosion, including 22,000 tonnes of maize and 15,000 tonnes.

It estimated that the crop productivity lost to severe erosion in Rwanda translated into a loss of about Rwf37.9 billion (5.5 per cent) of the Rwf690 billion agricultural sector contribution to Rwanda’s GDP in the first quarter of 2021.

Soil erosion removes the upper fertile part of soils that contains nutrients.