The Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources has announced plans to create a national agricultural advisory services forum.

Plans to set up the agency were discussed at a workshop in Kigali by ministry officials, higher institutions of learning and farmers’ representatives.

Closing the workshop dubbed, "Towards a knowledge and information based agricultural advisory services”, Tony Nsanganira, the State Minister for Agriculture, said the new body would engage in capacity building and coordinate information from all stakeholders in the agriculture sector.

"The forum is an additional structure to be used in implementing all strategies in place, among others. Our sub-sector working groups, programme implementors, stakeholders and policy makers will be advised by the forum.

We shall collaborate with countries that already have similar fora to share their successful stories,” Nsanganira said.

The forum will enable the country to network at continental and global levels to help it coordinate agricultural information from all stakeholders to solve farmers’ concerns easily.

Nsanganira also said ‘Twigire Muhinzi’, a farmers’ extension model, will be supported by the new forum through strong networking and capacity building.

"The initiative will expand existing platforms and go down at grassroots level to provide all needed advice on agriculture to increase productivity,” he said.

The next stage will be to start designing its structure, its management and mandate after proposing various options.

Dr Silim M Nahdy, the executive director of African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), said management of the forum could be carried out by the government, private sector or an NGO depending on the feasibility of the country, as it happened in Uganda, Malawi, Ethiopia and Kenya, adding that so far, 26 countries have similar fora.

"The main advantage of the fora is knowledge and capacity building through global networking which results into increased productivity. We are connected to all continents where we share innovations and other advisory services,” said Nahdy.

Joseph Gafaranga, the farmers’ representative, said he hoped the forum would advocate for farmers’ easy access to agricultural extension services.

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