Farmers in the Eastern and Southern provinces are to benefit from two projects aimed at enhancing small scale irrigation technologies (SSIT) and water resources management.

The two projects announced last Friday in Kigali are intended to empower farmers by providing subsides on SSIT equipment and capacity development.

Tony Nsanganira, the Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture, said they would complement and speed up existing initiatives.

"Studies have shown that we have 600,000 hectares that need to be irrigated to make them more productive. Yet today, only 30,000 hectares are irrigated, which means the projects will help us increase the irrigated area and enable us achieve our 100,000 hectares target by 2018,” he noted.

"Small scale irrigation and other types of irrigation are not new. They are interventions we started over ten years ago to address a number of constraints in terms of climate change. The projects are part of the solution to complement other existing initiatives like ponds, dams and others”.

Boroto Ruhiza, the senior water resources officer for the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) regional office for Africa, said the projects would help in agriculture management which contributes to both climate resilience and food security.

"These are projects to strengthen integrated water management in order to strengthen and enable environmental management and maximise the contribution of agriculture in poverty reduction focusing on smallholders,” he explained.

The first three-year project worth $2m – dubbed "More effective and sustainable investment in water for poverty reduction” is funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). It will cover six countries; Rwanda, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Madagascar, Mali and Niger.

The project will focus on impact assessment and achievements in efficient water resources management, research and policy dialogue.

The second project worth $340,000 is dubbed; "Enhancing small scale irrigation technologies in Rwanda”. It is estimated to last two years and will focus on activities dealing with communities producing equipment. It will be managed by FAO and the government of Rwanda.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, small scale irrigation costs $1,500 (about Rwf800,000) per hectare, while a more complex irrigation costs between $10,000 and $15,000 (about Rwf8 million) per hectare.

The small scale irrigation is subsidised up to 50 per cent, although the subsidy varies depending on the farmer’s status and profitability of the project. Individual farmers, communities, special groups like the Young Farmers Clubs and cooperatives are eligible to apply for the subsidy.

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