Rwanda

Rice in Rwanda

Rice has been grown in Africa for some 3,500 years but was only introduced to Rwanda in the 1950's. Rice is the staple diet for more than half the world's population, and offers numerous advantages to the Rwandan people over the existing staple foods which currently include bananas, sorghum, cassava and maize.

The country has a suitable climate for rice production, capable of growing two crops a year in a single field

The Rwandan Government has prepared a detailed program for the development of its rice industry. Production in 2004 was estimated to be nearly 50,000 tonnes of paddy rice grown on 7,500 hectares. The country has a suitable climate for rice production, capable of growing two crops a year in a single field. Topography limits the areas suited for rice growing to the valley floors of numerous specific river systems. MINAGRI has identified 66,000 hectares suitable for rice production.

The other and very significant limitation to rice production is water availability. Despite being located just south of the equator on the headwaters of the Nile, water availability in the two dry seasons when new rice crops are being established, severely restricts both rice area and rice yields per hectare. At present there are a number of small water storages being constructed within Rwanda to assist in the transfer of water from periods of relative surplus to the periods of high demand, but low availability. Each of these water storages service a production area of around 600 hectares, capable of producing 4,800Mt of paddy rice across two seasons. In the current model, the newly created irrigation land is provided to local and relocated farmers and the lack of working capital, technical knowledge and appropriate seed has created some issues.

Stage Two of ICM's proposal is to build an "on river" weir and a similar sized off river storage that will service 2,000 hectares and, with the introduction of modern Asian production technologies, will produce 20,000t of paddy per year. Rather than give farmers small subsistence sized rice farms, the idea is to develop a larger scale corporate type model that still provides for local ownership and management and also enables economies of scale and the sustainable adoption of new technology.