Over 25,000 male and female farmers have benefited from a Food and Agriculture Organisation funded project in Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the DR Congo.

The ten-year project focused on the improvement of food security in border districts in the four countries.

This was revealed Wednesday at a workshop in Kigali held to take stock of the achievements as the project closed shop.

With the objective of unlocking potential in the agriculture sector, increasing incomes and improving standards of living in the Great Lakes Region, the project started in 2006 in collaboration with governments of the respective countries.

It was funded by the Italian Development Cooperation at the tune of over $ 9 million.

The farmers organised themseves in more than 300 associations, 79 cooperatives and 37 small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

And, according to FAO, their groups increased their business capacity and incomes, and improved quality of their production and standards in their processing activities.

About 70 per cent saw at least a 30 per cent increase in their household income, which resulted into improved access to food, social services and assets, the FAO said.

In addition, the project also saw more than 1500 leaders of producers’ associations exposed to the value chain approach and provided with knowledge to increase market-oriented production.

Seventeen value chains with relevance in terms of food security and cash income were selected and supported to develop and upgrade.

This was aimed at tapping into their economic and social development potential, enhancing food security, and diversifying livelihoods as well as generating employment through more profitable production systems and increased value addition and access to markets.

The value chain approach intended to develop inclusive systems of smallholder producers, buyers, processors, sellers, consumers and other actors.

The project helped establish 10 rural processing plants (focusing on fruit juices, honey, rice, maize, cassava, cheese, potato and animal feed) and facilitated vertical integration and linkages between the various value chain actors.

Attaher Maiga, the FAO Representative in Rwanda, said that "a lot has been done and remarkable results were achieved.”

He also said FAO would consolidate and share good practices to upscale successes at national level and beyond.

Charles Murekezi, the Director General for Agricultural Development at the Ministry of Agriculture, said "One of Rwanda’s strategic objectives for transformation of the agricultural sector is the promotion of value chains.

Rwanda is aiming at unlocking all those bottlenecks along the chains, right from production to markets; this approach–which has been demonstrated by the project–will lead us towards improving productivity and efficiency.”

Dacien Twine, the manager of a farmers’ cooperative known by its acronym IAKIB, in Gicumbi District, said his cooperative received a milk cooling machine and a milk tanker which has helped them to grow from the the 10000 litres they used to put on market before, to 32,000 litres today.

Among other things, the project also supplied 200,000 passion fruit seedlings, 7500 suckers of pineapples, potato seeds, 450 kilogrammes of maize seeds, iron sheets for 7 drying and storage facilities, two greenhouses for the production of passion fruit seedlings in collaboration with Rwanda’s National Agriculture Export Board.

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