TechnoServe, in partnership with the Government and the European Union, have been working together in enhancing Rwanda's coffee supply chain through digital innovation. The development made strides last week during a week-long workshop held in Huye District. The event that was part of Rwanda Ikawa Nziza Cyane programme showcased the success of a four-year initiative designed to unlock the potential of the nation's coffee value chain. Launched in 2020, the program has reached over 50,000 smallholder farmers, supported 50 coffee washing stations, and collaborated with leading coffee exporters to improve both production and quality & to strengthen Rwanda’s competitiveness in the global specialty coffee market. Central to the workshop’s training were the digital tools developed to help sustain good agricultural practices, streamline production, ensure quality, and promote sustainability, The tools are the Digital Farm Extension Monitoring System (DFEMS), Coffee Processing Quality Index (CPQI) checklist, and the Coffee Cooperative Health Check application. As the program nears its conclusion in January 2025, the digital tools ownership transfers to NAEB to ensure the long-term impact and widespread adoption of these innovations across the country's coffee industry. ALSO READ: Technology, innovation could unlock Africa’s agriculture potential Olivier Kamana, the permanent secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, highlighted that the project introduced three digital tools aimed at improving the extension services provided to farmers, explaining that the tools will replace traditional paper-based methods. “This project aims at digitalizing the coffee sector in Rwanda, and the tools will reduce the reliance on paperwork, enabling us to be closer to farmers and collect data more efficiently at the national level,” he said. Kamana also added that the tools will not only support farmers with technical advice but also provide them the ability to access crucial farming information at any time. “Unlike previous interactions where advice was given verbally without any tangible record, the new system will allow farmers to consult the tools regularly, ensuring they stay informed on best practices to improve their productivity. This is going to enhance productivity for our farmers because the advice and technical support they receive from extensionists will now be stored in the tool, allowing farmers to access it at any time and be reminded of what they need to do on their farms,” he added. ALSO READ: Agricultural Sustainability for Africa Olive Nzayisenga, the project manager at TechnoServe, emphasized that the Rwanda INC project’s efforts to engage youth in the coffee sector by offering hands-on experience through internships, adding that while the program only reached 63 students from local institutions, it marked the beginning of greater youth involvement in the coffee industry, with plans to expand in the future. The goal of this initiative was to introduce youth to the coffee sector through hands-on experience and we provided internships for 63 youth from IPRC Huye and IPRC Karongi, which we see as just the beginning of involving more young people in this sector,” she said. She also highlighted the collaboration with the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB) to develop quality guidelines for the coffee sector, noting that these guidelines, which were validated by NAEB, aim to improve coffee production standards across the country. While we do not have news about immediate scale-up, we believe that the initiatives we have implemented will be scaled up through the government partnership we have developed, she added. Nzayisenga emphasized TechnoServe's broader goal of leveraging digital tools to support low-income communities and eradicate poverty, using technology to enhance agricultural programs and outcomes. ALSO READ: Inside Rwanda’s Rwf7tn agriculture strategic plan The Director of TechnoServe Labs Product Management and Engineering for TechnoServe, Sildio Mbonyumuhire, elaborated on the role of digital tools in the coffee sector, emphasizing the importance of capturing farm data to identify areas needing improvement. He explained how the tools, which are used by agronomists and coffee washing stations, allow stakeholders to monitor farm activities and effectively allocate resources. The main thing is actually we all believe that these farmers are not really experts in agronomy, really, so they need support, right? But for you to know exactly which support they need, you need to monitor them. You need to have a tool that allows you to see what is happening on the field, he said. Mbonyumuhire also highlighted how the tools can track farmers’ adherence to good agricultural practices, assigning scores to identify weaknesses and areas needing attention, explaining that this data-driven approach would increase both the quantity and quality of coffee production by focusing on areas that need improvement. It's going to capture information across the country from the farmers and their farms, and then you can actually know which areas need improvement, and actually you can support them, he noted. He added that through the distribution of seedlings, the system can track which trees need replacement, thus automatically facilitating the growth of coffee farms. ALSO READ: Rwanda launches Rwf2.7 trillion agriculture development strategy Marcel Abimana, a participant from Gatsibo, shared how the workshop introduced him to several digital tools, like DFEMS and CPQI, that will help track farmers, improve coffee farming productivity and maximize quality of processing. He explained that these tools allow for digital monitoring of all processes, making it easier to input data during farm visits and identify areas that need attention. In the last five days, I have learned so many tools that will help me track farmers usually in the past, you would have the data on paper, and sometimes you would lose the paper, but now with the digitization, you can put everything in the system, and everyone involved will have all the information needed and have it grow better, he said. Abimana pointed out that, unlike the previous paper-based system, the new digital approach gives a more uniform way of sharing knowledge across the coffee sector and ensures that all information is stored in the system and accessible to everyone involved, leading to better management and growth of the coffee sector.
