When Eugenie Mukamana was orphaned as a teenager, she thought that was the end of her. The primary school dropout was to later work as a house help to make ends meet.

"Life became increasingly hard, forcing me to look for any kind of work to make ends meet before I was of age,” says a resident of Kalembo sector in Ngoma District, Eastern Province.

She says she used to earn Rwf4,000 per month, which was just enough to meet her basic needs.

Mukamana says she was forced to till the neighbours’ gardens to supplement her income, something that would change her life years later. "I sometimes worked until it was dark so that I could look for another job the following day.

"It was hard to live on less than Rwf5,000 a month so I eventually, decided to quit the house help job and concentrated on farming on the family land,” she says.

Today, Mukamana says she has no regrets as she is reaping the immense benefits from commercial pineapple growing since she started the project three years ago. 

Inspiration

Mukamana says she was inspired by a group of Ngoma single mothers, who were facing a similar predicament as hers, but worked hard to look after their families. "It was inspiring and humbling to see women in the neighbourhood working hard to improve their conomic status and ‘liberate’ their families from poverty,” says the mother of three.

She says she had to throw in the towel as a maid and embarked on farming to ensure the family had food, with some for sell. Mukamana explains that she started off as a subsistence farmer and later graduated to commercial agriculture.

"I started growing food crops - cassava and Irish potatoes - as means of survival, but I later realised that it was more profitable to venture into cash crops,” she explains of her transition to a top pineapple farmer.

Why pineapples

Her love for pineapples started right from her childhood, noting that when she was growing up, their neighbours who had a big pineapple garden would give her family some pineapples once in a while.

"Since I had some few skills in pineapple growing, I seized the opportunity and planted a big garden of pineapples as a cash crop that would fetch me money,” she says.

Mukamana says growing pineapples is labour intensive, and requires a lot commitment and patience "because they need constant care to be more productive,” Mukamana notes. 

"It requires one to identify the right seeds (sucker), plant and ensure the plantation is mulched to maintain soil moisture.”

Challenges

Like other farmers, prolonged droughts, competition and perishabilty of the crop are some of the hurdles Mukamana faces.

The crop requires constant irrigation, which is quite challenging during dry spells, she says. She adds that the crop is equally perishable.

Achievements

Mukamana says she earns Rwf500,000 on average from her two hectares farm every season. She uses some of the money to pay fees for her three children who are in a primary school and ploughs the balance back into the project.

She has also expanded her plantation on foothills Kalembo. "I am also in the process of renovating the family house to make it more habitable,” she says.

Mukamana dreams of one day exporting pineapples to the regional market, as well as setting up a small processing plant in Ngoma.