The Ministry of Natural Resources (Minirena) and Ministry of Agriculture have embarked on a joint campaign for forests landscape restoration to ensure sustainable food security.

This was announced at a regional workshop dubbed "Towards a Coordinated Action for Forest Landscape Restoration (FLR) and Sustainable Food and Agriculture (SFA),’ which closed Friday in Kigali.

The two-day workshop, which attracted about 100 experts from the region and international organisations, was organised by both ministries in partnership with the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

 "FLR is critical from both agriculture and environmental perspectives. We need to commit a lot of efforts to sustain our agricultural achievements by increasing our land productivity without destroying our natural resources,” said Tony Nsanganira, the Minister of State for Agriculture.

Speaking at the workshop,   Dr Vicent Biruta, the Natural Resources Minister said there is need to take action before the country’s natural resources degradation becomes irreversible due to agricultural activities.

"Both ministries and stakeholders have embarked on preserving our natural resources and promoting food security with more dynamism to bring sustainable solutions to our development challenges,” he said.

Dr Biruta said about half of the world’s forest cover has been lost over the past 50 years due to unsustainable use of resources and Rwanda is not spared, having over 73 per cent of the population who depend on agriculture and forests.

Rwanda has reportedly lost 64 per cent of the forests over the past 50 years and over 40,000 tonnes of soil are lost every year to erosion.

 "Soil fertility, organic matter and genetic resources, particularly for agriculture, are getting diminished, and the most leading cause is human activities.

‘‘We should therefore remember that when we destroy the forest, we eradicate  the entire ecosystem, posing serious threats to our lives,” the minister said.

 He added that the government has committed to restore 2 million hectares of degraded land and FLR is critical to realise the target.

The Ministry of Agriculture is focusing on agro-forestry, to fight the effects of climate change and soil erosion, according to Innocent Musabyimana, the ministry’s Permanent Secretary.

"We partner with Minirena to sustain our natural resources especially land for better crops. We are partnering on Land Husbandry, Water Harvesting and Hillside Irrigation (LWH) programme which intends to conserve our hills by means of terraces and water harvest,” he said.

 Musabyimana said much has been done but more is needed to promote agricultural productivity.

 Before the programme in 2008, only ten districts had the 2,100 minimum kilo calories for each person per day but since 2011, all the districts hit the target, according to Musabyimana.

 "We target terraces on 200,000 hectares, but now only 90,000 hectares have been done. Our population is growing and we need to cater for them by increasing crop productivity.”

 The FAO country representative, Attaher Maiga appreciated the progress and said FAO is eager to support Forest Landscape Restoration and Sustainable Food and Agriculture to ensure comprehensive sustainable development of the country.

 Maiga added that Rwanda is one of the three SFA lead countries worldwide.