Agriculture production in the previous season A of 2012 increased by 9 per cent, the Ministry of Agriculture has said.Season A runs from September to February of every year.“We registered a major increase in the agriculture production in season A of this year by 9 percent compared to 2 per cent in the similar season of last year. This is an indication that government programmes like crop intensification are yielding results,” Ruzindaza said.According to the official, among the crops that played a key role in increasing the production pool in season A of 2012 include maize, beans, Irish potatoes, rice, bananas.Ruzindaza explained that in season A of this year, maize production increased by 19 per cent, beans by 37 per cent whereas the production for bananas increased by 8 per cent, rice production increased by 7 per cent and Irish potatoes by 1 per cent.He told The New Times that in both season A and B of last year, the whole agriculture increase was at 5.5 per cent.He noted that currently the country has 126,000 metric tonnes of food production in excess, adding that this will help the government in mitigating food shortages in the future.He said that his ministry through National Strategic Reserve bought surplus produce of the previous seasons from farmers saying that this is aimed at shielding the farmers from incurring losses due to lack of markets for their agriculture production. “Although there is increase in production, we still have a long way to go, which is why the ministry plans to vigorously push for the implementation of different programmes to ensure growth is sustained,” he said, adding that they will mainly strengthen farmers’ cooperatives.He said so far, 845 farmers’ cooperatives have been created countrywide which he said would help farmers to sell their output at reasonable prices.
