The Kinazi Cassava Processing Plant in Ruhango District is only operating at 40 per cent of its capacity because of shortage of cassava roots, officials have said.   

The multi-million plant has capacity to process 120 metric tons of raw cassava for a 20-hour daily operation and serves local, regional and international markets. 

The plant manager, Robert Runazi, said the shortage is not only because farmers do not grow enough cassava.

He also cited other reasons such as farmers opting to sell their produce to the neighbouring countries such as DR Congo and Burundi, and low production, among others. 

"The plant gets only 15 per cent of the total cassava production of local farmers. We don’t have enough cassava to process,’’ Runazi said. 

He was talking about the plant operational status on Thursday during a stakeholders’ meeting at Ruhango District.  

The factory requires about 1,500 hectares of cassava plantations per year for full capacity utilisation.  

Basing on the number of hectares of cassava plantations, the plant could not face cassava shortage stakeholders agreed. 

This is backed by the fact that cassava plantations in Ruhango alone cover 10,050 hectares and more land is available in the neighbouring Kamonyi, Nyanza, Muhanga and Gisagara districts. 

However, farmers are not selling their produce to the plant and they do not use modern farming techniques to increase yield. 

Assessing drawbacks

Farm-gate price of a kilogramme of raw cassava is Rwf55 and the collection of cassava is done by the plant. 

Kinazi Cassava Plant was officially opened on April 16, last year, by President Paul Kagame. About Rwf7 billion was invested in the plant. 

Southern Province is renowned for cassava growing, but the production is low because farmers are not familiar with modern agricultural practices. 

John Twiringiyumukiza, the director-general of Ibakwe Rwanda, a local organisation providing outreach services to rural communities, said in 2010, the province contributed 42 per cent of the total cassava production in the country. 

However, he said most of the farmers still use traditional methods of farming, which affects production. 

Twiringiyumukiza said even if 80 per cent of cassava farmers grow improved seeds, many of them do not apply fertilisers as only 4 per cent use chemical fertilisers and 20 per cent use organic fertilisers. 

He said the yield is generally 15.4 metric tonnes per hectare for traditional system of farming, while when using fertilisers, the potential yield is 32.8 metric tonnes per hectare. 

Participants at the meeting also blamed the shortage on lack of training, saying at farmer field schools, alone facilitator trains 100 farmers on modern farming. 

The Director-General of Crop Production in the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Norbert Sendege, said proper coordination was needed and promised that the ministry will deploy more facilitators to ensure a farmer to trainee ratio of 1:25 instead of 1:100 farmers.