The East Africa Grain Council (EAGC) and USAID/COMPETE plan to enhance Rwanda’s food security and boost economic growth by carrying out a review on Rwanda’s staple food competitive advantage and trade expansion program.

During a consultative meeting that attracted officials from the Ministry of Agriculture and local entrepreneurs in Kigali on Tuesday, John Bosco Kalisa a trade expert with COMPETE, said that as an implementing partner under the Global Hunger and Food Security Initiative, COMPETE was working to remove policy barriers to the trade of staple foods, improve food production technologies and strengthen regional markets.

"Staple food plays an important role as a source of income and livelihood to about 80% of Rwandans and also contributes greatly to the nation’s GDP.

Therefore, COMPETE and partners set aside US$ 84m to foster strategic priorities that improve food security by creating an environment favourable to income generation in the COMESA region,” Kalisa said.

He further noted that there was need to address market information problems as well as encourage banks and insurance services to support agricultural projects since most of the population is engaged in these projects.

"Rwanda’s financial institutions should not shy away from supporting the existing initiatives towards enhancing the productivity of staple crops, because they are also a channel of good entrepreneurial opportunities for Rwandans,” Kalisa added.

Rafael Runganwa, the Program Manager in Charge of Institutional Development in the Ministry of Agriculture, commended the initiative and said that staple food farmers in Rwanda face a challenge of lack of storage facilities as well as cleaning and drying agents for their perishable goods.

"Rwanda was importing more food than it produced in 2008, but currently, we are producing a surplus. The Ministry of Agriculture is in the process of rehabilitating some of the old storage facilities and also building new ones to assist staple food farmers,” Runganwa said.

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