Govt partners private sector on agriculture

The government is committed to working with private sector investors to develop agriculture sector as an important aspect in driving the country to middle income status and to achieve the 11.5 per cent annual growth as outlined in the Second Economic Development and Poverty Reduction Strategy (EDPRS2).Agriculture minister Agnes Kalibata said this during the second day of the ongoing food security meeting in Kigali dubbed, Cracking the Nut. Dr Kalibata said her ministry was working with Rwanda Development Board and other partners such as Usaid to sustain gains made in the sector in the last five years.“Government has been prioritising agriculture but we cannot do it on our own as there are other priorities like infrastructure development as well. We need the private sector to take over from what the government has so far achieved,” she said.“The private sector should take advantage of the numerous investments the government has made to build smallholder capacity and benefits of consolidation of resources.” The minister added that the previous keen involvement by government in the agriculture sector proved that the Rwanda can produce marketable and competitive produce and can be part of the regional market and export staple food.“We have demonstrated that agriculture can greatly reduce poverty. We have so far been able to reduce poverty by 12 per cent taking about a million farmers out of poverty (under EDPRSI). We are trying to see how we can interest the private sector to tap into and develop further what we have been creating in a sector where we have land to give to investors,” Dr Kalibata said.She said they are trying to prove to the investors that they do not necessarily need to own land to be part of the agricultural investment in the country.“You can work with the small scale farmers in the country in value addition. You can invest in farmers and get produce from them as already there is consolidation and do what farmers cannot afford to invest in. We need people to invest in the value chain and are working to strengthen that position. In production dynamics, many a time the private investors know what’s best more than government,” she added.Private sector for developmentThe minister said there was progress in the initiative as there were already investments in sub sectors such as coffee.The chief operations officer of the Rwanda Development Board, Claire Akamanzi, said RDB was bringing the private sector on board for economic development. RDB’s main role being to increase private sector performance in creating jobs, increasing opportunities in the market and increasing productivity was keen on coming up with ways to increase the sectors involvement in development.“We are linking private investors to the existing opportunities and also identifying opportunities where private sector can do well. Increasing exports is one of our key targets for our transformation agenda,” Akamanzi said.She added that the economy has been growing at the rate of about 8 per cent over the past decade, save for the last three years when the growth marginally declined to 7.5 per cent. Akamanzi said this made Rwanda one of the fastest growing economies in Africa.“We have also been able to curb inflation and maintained it at single digit. We have made governance a key pillar of our economic development plan as well as fighting corruption to emerge one of the least corrupt countries in the continent, making doing in business here easier,” she said.Rwanda was recently ranked as the second easiest place to do business in Africa after Mauritius and the 32nd best place to do business in the world by World Bank’s Doing Business Report.The country is also the world’s most reformed economy for the last eight years. Anita Campion, the president of AZMJ (a global consulting firm offering services to transform international development and build local capacity) said the model being adopted by the Agriculture ministry and Rwanda Development Board was a model for other nations seeking to increasing agriculture’s contribution to economic development.The three-day conference closes today.

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Govt partners private sector on agriculture