Rewarding farmers with high survival rates of trees to plant in addition to extending Vision Umurenge Programme to include the planting and management of trees on public and private land are new financial strategies that could help enhance trees’ survival rates, according to the International Centre for Research in Agroforestry (ICRAF).

Evidence shows that the survival rates of trees planted in farmlands are very low, ranging between 30 per cent and 50 per cent during the first year, and 10 to 30 per cent three years after planting. This represents a loss of financial resources and leads to failure to achieve expected plantation outcomes.

According to ICRAF, there is a need to rethink the strategies to increase trees on farms by controlling the factors and conditions that lead to high tree mortality after field planting.

A related dialogue was held on November 29, by ICRAF and the ministry of environment to formulate and recommend financial strategies that will enhance survival rates of trees on farms for increased socio-economic and environmental benefits.

Dr. Athanase Mukuralinda, the Country Director of ICRAF Rwanda, said that tree planting campaigns are often successful in getting more trees in the ground, but survival rates are usually very low, and farmers need greater incentives to invest in the management of their trees up to the point when they become profitable.

"In Rwanda, considering the last five years, the loss incurred by a high mortality rate is estimated to be Rwf30 billion in the most conservative hypothesis. An increase in survival rate saves an average Rwf6 billion lost in replacement of trees every year," he said.

Rewarding farmers

Mukuralinda highlighted the importance of performance-based contracts (PBC) to incentivise farmers to manage the trees.

The PBC model was developed in partnership with Dr.Brian Chiputwa, an economist and Anja Gassner from ICRAF Nairobi and Bonn respectively.

The performance is judged on the survival of trees and their good management to a given level of maturity.

All farmers who meet survival and management criteria are rewarded, in cash or in kind. Examples of in-kind rewards that have been tried are livestock and agricultural implements. The approach was tried in Nyagatare and Rutsiro districts where it led to a tree survival rate of 70% after incentivizing farmers.

As incentives, ICRAF signed with local farmers a performance-based contract geared towards the protection of the transplanted trees which included alunus, grevillea, and acacias. ICRAF provided goats and pigs to every family which reached a tree survival of 70%.

Extending Vision Umurenge Programme

ICRAF recommended the use of Vision Umurenge Programme (VUP), an integrated local development programme meant to accelerate poverty eradication, rural growth, and social protection, to incentivise farmers to plant and manage trees on their land.

Saidi Sibomana, the Division Manager in charge of Local Development Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Local Administrative Entities Development Agency (LODA), said that the VUP programme in 2023/24 created 73,000 jobs through radical terraces construction and tree planting.

"It can be a good approach to promoting agroforestry for reforestation and ecosystem restoration. Citizens get engaged as long as they see benefits. There are areas where we created community agroforestry groups," he said.

Egide Karuranga, a researcher, said fruit trees such as avocados should be promoted under performance-based contracts by introducing fruit trees on the farm. Farmers start getting new income starting from the third year after transplantation, as is the case for avocado and mango trees.

ICRAF’s conservative hypothesis puts that perennial income at Rwf13,000 per tree. That income will increase every year as the trees grow to reach maturity level starting from the seventh year when the harvest is valued at Rwf65,000 per tree, based on current market prices.

This will, as explained, lead to fast graduation out of poverty and put farmers in the middle-income class posted in Rwanda’s Vision 2030.

On the macro-economic level, fruits will help in fighting malnutrition while increasing the so-much-needed exports to lessen Rwanda's trade deficit, he said.

"In addition to helping poor households graduate out of poverty, managing the trees well will help Rwanda tap into the carbon market," Karuranga said.

Concorde Nsengumuremyi, the Director General of Rwanda Forestry Authority, said the new financial strategies will help Rwanda achieve a global pledge to restore two million hectares of degraded land by 2030.

"Having partners such as ICRAF will help meet the target of increasing survival rates of planted trees. This year, we will plant 65 million trees including agroforestry, fruit trees, and trees for timber production. New financing strategies to increase the number of trees on farms are needed."

"These include rewarding farmers who manage the trees. The farmers can get money or in-kind support such as tools used in agriculture and forestation. They can get subsidized seedlings and fertilizers as a motivation to ensure tree survival rates. The VUP programme can also be used to increase cover. Farmers participating in VUP could be paid to plant trees on their land," he said, adding that there is a need for scaling up such strategies.