Agriculture mechanisation has enormous potential to increase productivity, and household incomes, Juvenal Kalema, the head of agricultural department at Rwanda Development Bank (BRD), has said. 

According to Kalema, embracing modern agriculture is a sure way to increase the agricultural sector yields and boost household incomes.

"Therefore, commercial banks should support the agricultural sector in terms of funding because most farmers cannot afford farm equipment,” he said.

Kalema was speaking during the hand over of irrigation equipment worth over Rwf6 million to farmers in Rwinkwavu sector, Kayonza District recently.

The irrigation equipment was bought with support from BRD.

Meanwhile, Kalema has said lack of affordable finance is affecting the growth of agriculture activities and hence crop production. He said BRD targets to give out $170 million to the agriculture sector within five years.

"We are encouraging farmers to join co-operatives and work with SACCOs so that they can access these loans,” he added.

Rachel Mukeshimana, a farmer in Rwinkwavu sector, said they have been using basins to irrigate their crops.

She said the new irrigation equipment funded by the bank will ease the process and help farmers in the area to increase crop production. She added that such efforts are key to ending household poverty through increased agriculture productivity.

Farmers have for long been complaining about lack of resources to acquire agriculture equipment despite the implementation of a lease law last year. Under the law, farmers can apply for farm equipment leases. However, most banks are reluctant to develop lease products targeting farmers.

The agriculture minister recently said the government was in discussions with commercial banks to address the issue. The agriculture sector grew by 7 per cent in the first three months of the year and contributed 33 per cent to GDP. Other key drivers of growth were industry that grew by 10 per cent, and services that registered 7 per cent growth. However, services added 46 per cent to GDP while industry contributed 25 per cent of the period under review.

Government is promoting agriculture modernisation as one of the key interventions under the second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS II).

Rwanda seeks to expand the agriculture sector by 8.5 per cent per year by 2018 from the current 5.8 per cent. The sector employs over 72 per cent of the Rwandan population.