Over the years, the agricultural sector in Africa has produced important strides, but the continent remains a net importer of food despite the advancement. This is despite having 60% of the uncultivated arable soil in the world.
By 2050, Africa will have a population of 2 billion, and farming will be essential to feeding all these people. To accomplish this, scientists are recommending that agricultural transformation should occur.
When 28-year-old Andrew Mugabe and 25-year-old Innocent Mutabazi learned about this, two years ago, the two young entrepreneurs in agriculture believed there was no better way around it than being part of the process.
“I read a report by FAO (Food Agriculture Organisation) when I was still at the University that indicated the potential that was in agriculture. That report highlighted that there was a gap in food production,” Mugabe, a graduate of University of Rwanda, says of the genesis of their agribusiness journey.
When he told his colleague at the University about it, it wasn’t long enough before he was convinced to join hands to start something. However, the concept was to do business differently.
“What was on top of our mind was to use technology to change the way agriculture is conducted locally,” Mugabe narrates.
A plant of bell pepper cultivated in a greenhouse. This is one of the most common plants driven by greenhouse technology.
And that’s precisely what the two entrepreneurs from Rwanda embarked on-they became technology proponents, especially greenhouse technology as a means to enhance productivity.
These entrepreneurs firmly think that agriculture can transform and become a pillar of the African population, from moving away from traditional farming to embracing modern farming methods.
That point holds water ; technology developments continue to develop in new ways to satisfy the increasing populations of the planet’s requirements.
Farmers are finding productive methods to do stuff from a small-scale trader using the recent software to handle his stock and finances to a tea farmer getting his income on his mobile phone.
Agricultural trends have also continued to develop. Food growers combine best increasing methods with the recent advances from low-tech tunnels and hoop houses to vertical farming and hydroponic greenhouses to create the best out of what they do.
Backed by ‘ Gasabo Model Farm, ‘ Mugabe and Mutabazi are confident that the continent can do much more with greenhouse technology, and their firm intends to do just that.
The two use greenhouse technology 365 days a year to grow plants.
“With this technology, we are able to grow crops in a totally controlled environment,” they say.
Greenhouse Technology is simply the technique of providing favourable environment condition to the plants.
Greenhouses are structures that are framed or inflated with transparent or translucent material that is big enough to grow plants under partial or fully regulated environmental circumstances.
The indoor farm is independent of seasonality and climate and with it they can develop more crop cycles than the open field does and achieve more yield per each crop cycle.
“The technology is generally not new as it has been practiced for many years but here (in Rwanda), we haven’t adopted it on large scale,” the entrepreneurs say.
A journey to the greenhouses of Gasabo Model Farm provides one a image of what this technology might mean once it is commonly embraced.
House bell peppers and tomatoes in the greenhouses. The plants are cultivated in a controlled setting and do not depend solely on falling rain, sunlight or soil fertility.
“This is because inside these greenhouses are irrigation systems programmed to pour the same amount of water on plants. The coverings of the houses are also transparent, which means if the sun disappears, there is heat that is retained,” Mugabe explains during a tour at the facility.
Currently, the entrepreneurs own two greenhouses that can house around 600 crops each. Each plant is anticipated to have generated about three months of at least 12-16 kilograms over its lifetime.
“When you do this in an open field, the highest you could get is 4 kilos per plant. If everything goes well, there is a difference of 400 per cent,” Mugabe says.
Gasabo Model Farm aims to establish two more bell pepper greenhouses before the end of this year, chili and cherry and traditional tomatoes. But the big idea is to have more greenhouses that could be managed by households across different parts of the city.
The entrepreneurs suggest investing in and adopting greenhouses in Rwanda as the primary practice, stating that if you were a contemporary farmer, you would generate more on an 8-meter by 24-meter tiny greenhouse than on a one-hectare open field.
But this is not an easy way out.
Establishing a greenhouse could cost more than investing in an open field, regardless of how much focused productivity. For example, it might cost about Rwf4 million to build a greenhouse, they claim.
This is because, according to the entrepreneurs, there are monopolistic trends among greenhouse machinery providers.
