MUSANZE - The Prime Minister, Pierre Damien Habumuremyi, yesterday joined residents of Nyange Sector, Musanze District, in an exercise to apply   fertilisers on a 200-hectare maize plantation.

This was part of events organised to celebrate the World Food Day.

Habumuremyi also visited food stores with over 4,500 tonnes of food crops harvested from the area. He then toured an agricultural mini exhibition and listened to testimonies from farmers on increased food productivity and agricultural transformation.

The celebrations organised by the World Food Programme (WFP) in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture, were held under the theme "Good farm prices as an incentive to increased productivity’ in Rwanda.

"This day gives us an opportunity to reflect on what has been achieved in ensuring food security, and how to ensure sustainability. The government programme of agricultural transformation should be implemented and supervised,” Habumuremyi said.

The World Food Day, marked on October 16 every year, aims to set food prices from crisis to stability and highlights the vital role that food assistance plays during humanitarian crises, and building the resilience necessary to ensure food security.

"The agronomists should get out of offices and help farmers in the fields, agriculture has to be commercialised, people’s mindset towards agricultural practices has got to change towards embracing land consolidation and crop intensification,’’ Habumuremyi added.

During the exercise, three women were given cows as part of the government programme of one cow per family prograamme, Girinka.

The Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Ernest Ruzindaza, noted that the significance of the day was to ensure food security and remind nationals of the need for sustainable food production.

Farmers, Cecile Nyirabahutu, from the historically marginalised group, and Jean Birikunzira, testified how the new programmes on land and crop have improved their productivity, incomes, and welfare. 

Abdoulaye Balde, World Food Programme country director, said that more efforts have to be done to address the issue of hunger, and address food price fluctuations which for decades have become increasingly volatile.

Ends