Rwanda and the Rhineland-Palatinate have committed to promoting cooperation in agriculture mainly in technology-driven farming, and sustainable winegrowing - the cultivation and harvesting of grapes, officials have said.

The development will be achieved thanks to the joint Letter of Intent on deepening cooperation in the field of agriculture between Rwanda and the German State of Rhineland-Palatinate.

It was signed in Kigali on Wednesday by the Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Gerardine Mukeshimana and the Minister of Economic Affairs, Transport, Agriculture and Viniculture of the Rhineland Palatinate, Dr. Volker Wissing.

In addition, the two countries seek to enhance cooperative management, as well as enable visits between Rwandan and Rhineland-Palatinate cooperatives in a bid to help them learn from each other.

According to officials, both sides strive to work together more closely in the development of suitable technologies and know-how transfer to farmers to increase farm productivity. 

Minister Mukeshimana, commended the new move observing that Rwanda will learn a lot from the Rhineland Palatinate since they are highly experienced in smart farming, winegrowing, and cooperative management.

She said that the grapes were a high-value crop that Rwandans generally do not grow and only a few people such as Sina Gérard, the owner of Enterprise Urwibutso, an agro-processing firm in Rulindo District, and Theogene Ntampaka, a farmer in Huye District have been growing the crop.

"Rwandans eat grapes and drink wines, but almost all of them are imported. We realize that the market is available and Rwandans like them. There are trials that were carried out and showed that the crop can grow here,” Mukeshimana said.

"Many young people in Rwanda Youth in Agribusiness Forum are venturing into winemaking; so it’s important that we start thinking about how we provide them with what is needed for winemaking,” Mukeshimana said.

Minister Wissing said they have a lot of experience that can be shared with Rwandans to develop the country’s agriculture sector.

"The most important thing is to bring people together, connect your authorities but also connect the scientific sector and then identify concrete projects. After that, we shall look at how to finance viable projects,” he said.

Viniculture – winegrowing aspect

In winegrowing, the proposed areas of collaboration include conducting comprehensive feasibility studies, to identify and characterize suitable geographical regions and sites for grapevine cultivation in Rwanda; analyze and eventually propose a cultivation scheme including suitable grape varieties.

Other activities are to ascertain domestic and international markets for wine, table grapes, grape juice, and dried grapes produced in Rwanda, and to identify possible further obstacles and, to develop approaches to overcome these hindrances.

Smart farming

Regarding smart agriculture, Wissing said, they will support in capacity building and data management for precision agriculture, especially in climate services for agriculture.

This component will include identifying and sharing effective tools and methods to communicate digitization opportunities to farmers, especially in small and medium-sized farms.

Finally, it will support MINAGRI projects on a Smart Agricultural Information System (SAIS) and other technologies, such as blockchain, which integrate agricultural data management and analysis in one unit.

editor@newtimesrwanda.com