ASARECA boosts access to quality potato seed for Rwandan farmers using EU, World Bank funding.
BY BEN MOSES ILAKUT
MUSANZE, RWANDA: ASARECA Interim Executive Director, Dr. Syslvester Dickson Baguma has handed over 2.5 tons of Quality Certified potato seed, 11 spraying pumps, 200kgs of fertilizer, and assorted pesticides to 300 farmers belonging to the Dukomeze Ubuzima Cooperative, in Shingiro, Musanze, Rwanda.
Handing over the kitty during a training, demonstration and technology dissemination workshop in Shingiro in Musanze, Rwanda, on February 12, 2025, Dr. Baguma told participants that the Governments of ASARECA Member States as well as development partners demand to see interventions that directly transform agriculture and ultimately improve livelihoods of the people in Member States.
ASARECA Interim Executive Director, Dr. Sylvester Dickson Baguma hands over the kitty to 300 farmers in Rwanda
Leveraging resources
“As a servant of the governments and the farmers, ASARECA is encouraged by the progress in technology adoption activities undertaken by our national partners. This is what motivates us (ASARECA) to leverage resources from trusted partners like the European Union and the World Bank to ensure that capacity building initiatives currently on ground adequately reach the farmers and transform livelihoods,” Dr. Baguma said.
Training of trainers
He was speaking on the second day of the Training of Trainers (ToT) in Good Agronomic Practices, field demonstration and dissemination of smart climate agriculture (CSA) technologies among smallholder potato farmers. The training was organized under the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme ex-pillar IV (CAADP-XP4) Programme; Accelerating Impacts of CGIAR Climate Research for Africa (AICCRA) Project; and the Strengthening agricultural knowledge and the innovation ecosystem for inclusive rural transformation and livelihoods in Eastern Africa (AIRTEA) project.
Participants at the training at SPF facilities in Musanze, Rwanda. They toured the quality potato multiplication and storage facilities in the background
Addressing low adoption of quality potato seed
Rwandans eat more than 100 kg of potatoes per capita per year. The country is blessed with volcanic soil which is suitable for growing crops. However, average yields are less than half the optimal levels because most farmers plant low quality seed potatoes. Rwanda released 10 new potato varieties in 2023 with good agronomic attributes that include high tuber yields, short maturity periods, tolerance to pest damage, resistance to common diseases such as late blight and potato viruses. Despite this, the adoption of the new varieties among smallholder youth and women remains low due to the high cost associated with purchase of quality declared or certified seed potato seed and limited technical knowledge in GAPs for production of certified and quality declared seed.
Consortium partners
Based on this, ASARECA in collaboration with the Seed Potato Fund (SPF) Joint Ventures, Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB), Early Generation Seed Potato (EGSP), Institute of Applied Sciences (INES), OneBasket Online, and the President Dukomeze Ubuzima Cooperative organized the hands-on training in good agronomic practices, demonstration and dissemination of two new early maturing, high yielding and disease tolerant new potato varieties potato varieties (Cyerecyezo and Kazeneza) for the members of Dukomeze Ubuzima Cooperative (also known as Shingiro IP) in Musanze, Rwanda. The training is hoped to enhance the production of quality declared seed and eventually uptake of climate smart potato varieties by the 11 farmer groups.
The farmers received potato seed, praying pumps, fertilizer and assorted pesticides
CAADP-XP4 Programme funds farmer outreach
The training contributes to the CAADP-XP4 Programme’s focus on strengthening capacities of innovation platforms to scale up proven CSA Technologies, Innovations and Management Practices (TIMPs) the advantage of last mile beneficiary—the farmers. The CCADP-XP4 project is funded by the European Union (EU) under the Development Smart Innovation through Research in Agriculture (DeSIRA) initiative and managed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).
AICCRA project boost capacity strengthening
The training also aligns to AICCRA project aim to disseminate and make accessible validated climate information services and climate-smart agriculture technologies to farmers. The AICCRA project is funded by the World Bank and aims to strengthen the technical, institutional, and human capacity needed to enhance transfer of climate-relevant information, decision-making tools, and technologies in support of scaling efforts in Africa.
ASARECA Programme Officer for technology dissemination, Dr. Joshua Okonya was on the ground to facilitate the learning
Building blocks
This training builds on and further contributes to the AIRTEA project focus on activity strengthening capacities of youth and women involved in multi-stakeholder Innovation Platforms (IPs). AIRTEA is a 5-year project that started in 2021 and is supported by the Organization of African, Caribbean, and Pacific States (OACPS) through the ACP Innovation Fund which is funded by the European Union (EU). The overall objective of AIRTEA is to contribute to achieving sustainable agrarian livelihoods and rural transformation by fostering an inclusive innovation environment. In Africa, it is managed by a consortium consisting of FARA, ASARECA and EAFF and is due to end in a few months. The consortium is promoting the Innovation Platform approach for promoting adoption of proven agricultural technologies.
ASARECA’ s value in AR4D
Dr. Baguma explained that ASARECA value addition to Agricultural Research for Development in its role of bringing together various stakeholders, resources, and competencies to make the best of innovations in agricultural research. “The collaboration of RAB a national research institution with INES, a university and SPF, is significant in taking technologies produced by RAB to the ultimate clients—the farmers,” Dr. Baguma stressed. “By working with researchers and development agencies, the farmers of Shingiro IP are refining and embracing the technologies. By transforming their IP into a cooperative (Dukomeze Ubuzima Cooperative), they are enhancing adoption of technologies. This is how development is attained.”
ASARECA staff provided technical and logical support towards the procurement of the training and outreach services
SPF shows the way to farmer empowerment
The training of trainers in good agronomic practices was held for two days at SPF training room in Musanze, Rwanda on February 11 and 12 and was moved to farmer fields for three days from February 13 to 15. Over 60 farmers drawn from communities involved in Agricultural Innovation Platforms established by RAB and supported by ASARECA among other partners participated.
Sensitization on the critical farming basics
The sessions at SPF took a classroom setting starting with a joint planning meeting ahead of the interaction with farmers. It was proceeded on the second day with researchers taking the farmers through selected demand-based topics such as soil testing, fertilizer management, seed quality and certification, pest and disease management, quality declared seed production as a business, harvesting, sorting, grading and seed storage, record keeping in farming as a business, and the use of digital platforms in the potato value chain.
Attentive farmers in a classroom setting at SPF in Musanze, Rwanda before returning to their farms in Shingiro where most of the learning was done
Farmers learn by seeing
This was followed by a tour of SPF seed potato production facility, which applies aeroponics and sandponics technologies. The farmers were taken through the process of production of potato mini tubers at the mega screenhouse with capacity to produce 540,000 mini tubers per season. They also toured seven (7) seed potato stores with the total capacity of 3,500 MT. Participants learnt that aeroponics and sandponic technology offer many benefits in the production of quality seed including a drastic increase in production of pre-basic seed, higher yields, high income and reduced production costs. Aeroponics involves rapid multiplication of mini-tubers with the root system suspended in chambers filled with a nutrient-rich mist. The conventional way of producing quality potato seed, which involves growing disease-free in vitro plantlets in pots in a greenhouse, requires a substrate that is sterilized using chemicals or steam. However, this technology posed a high financial and environmental cost, yet it produced only 5 to 10 mini tubers per plant. The aeroponic system, however, has the potential to produce more than 100 mini tubers. Aeroponics technology was therefore adopted as it offered an opportunity to increase production, reduce the time it takes to grow mini tubers, and lower the cost of production and limit the spread of diseases.
SPF staff take farmers through the process of producing and multiplying quality potato seed at the SPF facility in Musanze, Rwanda
Smallholders participate onfarm
The subsequent training sessions (3 days) were held at Shingiro IP where the Interim Executive Director, Dr. Sylvester Dickson Maguma and the technical teams handed over the start-up kitty to the 11 farmer groups. Following the official hand over practical and participatory demonstrations were undertaken by farmers with backstopping from researchers and extension agents from RAB, SPF and INES on soil sampling and testing, setting up of first demonstration plots, on boarding of farmers onto digital platforms.
The Project lead, Richard Mugenga lead said SPF has been promoting varieties released by RAB to small holder farmers through the AIRTEA project. He noted that the project has disseminated nine out of 11 new varieties developed by RAB and INES through 15 IPs. He particularly cited the Shingiro IP in Musanze, for commendable performance leading to its progression into a cooperative. The cooperative, which now owns a screen house for producing and multiplying Mini tubers had shown an exemplary performance in uptake of climate smart potato varieties.
Above: Framers prepare to plant the potato seed in Shingiro after receiving training and mastering the how-to-steps from researchers
Below: It is well with us-the farmers seem to say during the demonstration of Best Agronomic Practices in Shingiro
Background and context
Over 15 years ago (since 2008), ASARECA adopted the Innovation Platform (IP) approach as a framework for scaling out its proven gender responsive and climate smart agricultural Technologies, Innovations and Management Practices (TIMPs) in its 15 member countries. Since then, ASARECA has been providing oversight and technical backstopping to key stakeholders involved in facilitation of agricultural commodity-based IPs in ECA. This includes strengthening the capacity of commodity-based IPs to enhance technology demand articulation and prioritization of research action and scaling of innovation at regional, national, and sub-national levels.