Rwanda’s first cohort in seed technology has graduated with certificates after spending a year acquiring skills in seed multiplication and understanding various seed varieties in the country.
The graduation ceremony for 16 candidates took place on November 8 in Kigali and was officiated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MINAGRI) in collaboration with the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture (RICA).
The graduates completed the Seed Technology and Business Professional course, one of the five business-to-business services offered by the RICA Seed Center. This program is implemented by One Acre Fund in partnership with RICA and is funded by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation.
Graduates said that with the acquired skills and knowledge, the production per hectare is going to increase several times.
“When a potato seed is cultivated normally, the farmers’ yield is 10 tons per hectare, but the knowledge we have now shows that the farmer will be able to harvest 25 tons of potatoes per hectare ” explained one-Gilbert Turikubwimana.
Fellow graduate, Irankunda Gisèle Mignone, who specialized in Soybean technology said that a good farmer will now be able to harvest more than three tons per hectare instead of the current one and a half tons per hectare.These graduating women and men are already practicing in the seeds field and working in companies specialized in this sector.
Eric Pohlman, CEO of One Acre Fund Global, stated that, like the Netherlands—a country of similar size to Rwanda—Rwanda will also be able to export seeds globally.
“Many farmers in Africa get seeds from other parts of the world, now we have the ability to get seeds here, and if you look at the region (including Rwanda) you see that there is a gap. Seeds are on big demand. There is no reason why many companies in Rwanda cannot close that gap,”Pohlman said.
Dr. Ron Rosati, Vice Chancellor of RICA, assured that following the graduation of 16 students, the institute is accelerating efforts to increase the number of graduates. So far, they are operating on 109 hectares, producing many tons of seeds from various plants in less than two years since the program’s initiation“Seed multiplication companies are a new thing in Rwanda. The hardest part was to start. So we are now speeding up this by providing more scientists working on seeds in laboratories,” he noted.
Five years ago, the Ministry of Agriculture started a seed multiplication program in Rwanda after realizing that farmers were waiting longer for the seeds to be imported and ended up giving up, as the seeds arrived in the country late or damaged, causing losses and subsequent hunger for years.
Dr Patrick Karangwa, the Director General of Agriculture Modernisation at MINAGRI said that the graduates are expected to produce good quality seeds and yield many times more than what is currently available.
“In the last five years we have tripled the amount of seeds we were importing, but that is not enough. We must also have good seeds of unquestionable quality, especially because we want to growth the local markets so that others in the region can buy good seeds found in Rwanda.”.Dr Karangwa said.Dr. Karangwa noted that Rwanda wants to be among the countries that sell seeds on the international market, which until now has seen a 2% market share from African countries.
According to MINAGRI, Rwanda’s cultivated land is 802,000 hectares (8,020 km2), and there is a need for technology and innovation, starting with having enough good seeds produced for the Rwandan market and enough to be able to sell on foreign markets.
