On Tuesday, fruit farmers who supply to Inyange Industries, expressed frustrations at their failure to secure quality seeds.This, according to them, has affected both the quality and quantity of their produce, and are, thus, unable to provide the agro-processing factory with the required raw materials.As a result, Inyange is producing way below its capacity, specifically with regard to pineapples and passion fruits. Several other domestic factories face similar challenges.This has led to some of them looking beyond the borders for raw materials. Rwanda is essentially an agrarian economy, yet farmers cannot produce enough to supply the few local agro-processing factories.Importing raw materials pushes production costs up. In effect, locally produced products are sold at a cost higher than the competing products, which obviously puts them at a disadvantage.This scenario has already hurt many local firms, pushing some of them out of business altogether and leaving others on the brink. And when that happens, jobs are lost.To reverse the trend, various institutions need to work in consultation with farmers, to ensure that harvests are both of good quality and quantity.The ministries of Agriculture, and Trade and Industry as well as related bodies need to treat this as a matter of urgency.Farmers must be facilitated to acquire the appropriate inputs, even if it means importing them in the short-term, rather than sit back and look on as local factories continue to incur high production costs largely due to importation of basic raw materials.Most importantly, this will transform the lives of farmers though higher incomes.
