It’s a beehive of activity on a Wednesday morning inside an expansive warehouse at the National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB)
Workers carry plastic boxes complete of vegetables and fruits, while others sort them before sealing them, prepared for the cold room before shipping them to various markets around the globe.
Around 11 companies are currently operating in this pack house, employing up to 320 people – 80% of whom are women – in the sorting and packaging of horticultural products such as avocados, French beans (also known as green beans), passion fruits, snow peas, broccoli, bell pepper, chili pepper, eggplants and bananas before export.
Such plants have traditionally been cultivated for subsistence use, and for more than half a century only coffee and tea, and most lately pyrethrum, have been the country’s recognized cash crops.
According to NAEB data, these traditional exports were launched by colonialists.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, horticulture income increased from $0.300 million in 1994 to $27 million per year so far.
Pie Ntwari, NAEB’s communications officer informed The New Times that there was a lack of setting for expanding and diversifying agricultural exports before the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi.
There have been many factors, including the isolation of Rwanda from international markets.
“We had no [developed] air transportation. In brief, the business had not yet developed, and we had no ready market which is a necessity got such produce because of perishability,” he said.
Donatille Nibagwire, owner of Floris, a company engaged in horticulture exports, told The New Times that she started exporting about 300 kilograms [ of Latundan banana locally known as Kamaramasenge ] a week in 2001, but currently exports about 10 tons of various commodities to Europe, mainly Belgium and France, including avocados, eggplants, sweet potato leaves and bananas.
Her business is exporting to Congo-Brazzaville in Africa.
“The growth means that the business is performing well, and their (produce) standards are not questionable,” she said.
Tea and coffee have for long been the only cash crops for Rwanda, but, horticultural produce have also proven to be cash crops and have relatively higher returns, Nibagwire expressed.
“I think the foreign exchange generated by vegetables, flowers, and fruits [among other crops] are more than those generated from tea and coffee,” she said adding that those crops also provide income to many farmers growing them in shorter period.
According to statistics from NAEB’s June 2018 report, non- traditional exports generated more than $354.7 million (about Rwf307.5 billion) between July 2017 and June 2018, an increase of 59.97% compared to $221.7 million (Rwf192.2 billion) generated between July 2016 and June 2017.
Non- traditional export commodities are commodities that were earlier manufactured exclusively for domestic consumption in Rwanda and have lately entered the export market
Fruit, vegetables, roots and tubers, legumes and cereals, meat, eggs and dairy products as well as live animals are included in these commodities.
Meanwhile, in the 2017- 2018 period, the three traditional exports raked $161.2 million (over Rwf128 billion) compared with $134.7 million in the 2016-2017 period, an increase of 20%.
Emmanuel Ndagijimana, a French bean farmer from Gasabo District’s Kinyinya Sector, told The New Times that he is growing French beans on a half-hectare farm, harvesting four tons in two months.
He provides an export business with first- class French beans, at Rwf550 a kilogram, while the remaining products are transported to the local market where they are sold between Rwf150 and Rwf300 a kilogram .
“I invest Rwf1.3 million and generate about Rwf2 million from the sale of about four tonnes of French beans in two months,” he said adding that such a crop gives yield in a shorter period compared to other crops.
Nibagwire said there is a need to ensure that exporters satisfy demand, and called for ongoing attempts to guarantee quality product sustainability.
Realizing that there were price fluctuations for traditional agricultural exports (coffee, tea, and pyrethrum), Ntwari said the government decided to look for other ways to prevent likely losses that would result from this scenario – particularly since such prices were determined by Rwanda’s global market without control.
“The country adopted market-oriented agriculture – or agribusiness – vision. Then, we started by exporting the new cash crops to the regional market. The market demand increased even in Europe. We will continue to look for markets for the farmers, and facilitate them as well owners [of exporting firms] to have their agricultural products certified by meeting the standards that are being sought by the international market through training them, among other interventions,” he said.
Rwanda targets 46,314 tonnes of horticulture harvest and an annual export revenue of $130 million by 2024, according to projections from the Ministry of Agriculture.
