The delay in agriculture research resulted from longtime negligence- RAB

The Rwanda Agriculture Board, RAB, affirms that the currently observed delay in agriculture based research is a result of a longtime negligence nurtured by officials who were charged of this sector in the previous years as the national economic priorities differed from the current ones.

Recently the Head of State Paul Kagame asked officials in charge of the agriculture research why this research slows to produce desired outcomes.

The State minister in charge of agriculture Tony Sanganira responded that one of the key strategies that he Ministry is applying to solve this issue involves the fact the seed improvement research centers located in Rwanda are being strengthened.

 The research leader in the Rwanda Agriculture Board, Dr Patrick Karangwa told Umuseke that this remarckable delay  in agriculture is laid on the fact that in the past years, a kind of negligence in this matter was somehow neglected.

The current situation dictates to carry research so that the seed improvement can be maximized for possible and increased agricultural production, he underlined.

Normally improved seeds are key for an enhanced agriculture production. Before being shared between farmers, the seeds must be multiplied as to help more farmers acquire them easily.

However, the seed improvement, multiplication and distribution takes relatively longtime, between five to twelve years, meaning that this current research process is likely to be effective in many years ahead, according to Dr Karangwa.

Another issue that causes poor agricultural production results from the fact that some farmers prefer to use the traditional seeds rather than improved ones. This makes the agricultural outcomes becoming poor and, therefore, poor food security.

Dr Karangwa said that in order to deal with such hindrance, the RAB imports such seeds from Uganda even if some do not adapt with the Rwandan soil or become vulnerable to the seed diseases.

He, however, revealed that efforts are being carried out to improve the seeds that Rwanda still has.

The most underlying cause of the lack of specialists in this matter is that the 1994 genocide took lives of many experts as at time Rwanda had 80 experts in that matter.

According the information from the RAB, there are 103 experts in the matter among whom 20 are the PhD holders.

This is a good opportunity for the RAB to embark with a serious seed based research as the budget has been set up for the operation.

1.3 billion Rwf has been set up to be invested in this process, Dr Karangwa revealed.

The package will help in increasing experts’ skills, increasing the experimentation fields, laboratories, among others

UM– USEKE.RW