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Left to right: Youssef Lahmiti, VP East Africa, OCP Africa, Daniel Gies, head of the CNFA party, and Dr. Anouar Jamali, CEO OCP Africa.
Left to right: Youssef Lahmiti, VP East Africa, OCP Africa, Daniel Gies, head of the CNFA party, and Dr. Anouar Jamali, CEO OCP Africa.
Agriculture

OCP Africa, RFC, USAID and CNFA
launch a sweeping program to help Rwandan farmers

By Cédric Gouverneur - Published on August 2023
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​​​​​​​A trailblazing protocol agreement to support 180,000 farmers with two programs

​​​​​​​The OCP School Lab is the outcome of cooperation between the Rwanda Fertilizer Company (RFC, an OCP Africa joint venture), the Rwandan Ministry of Agriculture, USAID and CNFA (Cultivating New Frontiers in Agriculture, an American development organization operating in 47 countries). The facility, which opened in Murindi on May 18, will offer 30,000 Rwandan farmers from 140 villages a two-month training course. RFC will provide them with personalized advice on corn and potato crops to improve agricultural practices, boost yields and allow village communities to move beyond subsistence farming to better meet demand from local and international food companies. “We see to it that innovative approaches benefit small farms so that they can participate in competitive markets and become profitable,” says Daniel Gies, head of the USAID-funded association Hinga Wunguke (“to become profitable” in Kinyarwanda).

The project will also advise 5,000 farmers on fertilizers and the use of dry chemistry through spectrometry, “a cutting-edge, user-friendly technology” that can help them determine “the nutrients their soil needs,” says the RFC. They will also receive support to boost innovation and the spirit of entrepreneurship in the agricultural value chain. The program plans to analyze soil in 14 districts to identify their needs.

Another program, Farmer Hub, will aim to build the capacities of young producers and vulnerable communities of women farmers by making it easier for them to access agricultural inputs and small farm machinery and spurring local innovation. A dozen Farmer Hubs, managed by Rwandan business-owners, will serve around 150,000 local growers. Since 2016, OCP School Lab training courses and services have benefitted over 770,000 farmers from nine countries (Senegal, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, Togo, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya and Tanzania). Rwanda, where about 70% of the working population earns a living from the land, has just joined the list. The question of agricultural yields is particularly crucial in this small country of 13.5 million: the population density exceeds 400 people per square kilometer of arable land, compared with an average of only 23 in the rest of Africa.