The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched an initiative under which small-scale farmers in Rwanda will be supported to transition from subsistence farming to market-oriented agriculture.

The "Patient Procurement Platform’ (PPP) will help farmers enter into contracts with buyers for their crops before planting, a move that will guarantee farmers market.

Lack of market and exploitation by middle men is the biggest challenge for most farmers. Farmers don’t have capacity to access market for their produce, and unscrupulous middle men take advantage of this and buy the produce from farmers at give away prices before taking the produce to urban centres where they sell it at exorbitant prices.

Therefore, this initiative is plausible and should be supported by all stakeholders in agriculture. Signing contracts before planting gives farmers a sense of security and assured market, which should also be a motivator for financial institutions to loosen their strict stance when it comes to giving farmers loans or other financial services.

Agriculture remains one of the key sectors in the country’s economy, employing over 70% of the population. The majority of these are smallholder farmers who need all the support to embrace modern farming, which is the only way to make the sector more competitive and productive. Value addition in agriculture will also help spur the upsurge of locally manufactured goods.

Government has embarked on a drive to promote local industries in a bid to reduce over reliance on imported goods.

Transforming the agriculture sector is one of the key ways to achieve this goal as value addition in agriculture means setting up of processing industries which will serve the bigger agro processing and manufacturing industry.