Govt reassures food security #rwanda

Food security situation in the country is under control
despite climate change, government has said.
The reassurance follows recent media reports which
indicated that some families were experiencing food
shortages.
However, according to ministry officials, despite poor
performance of season B of 2013, food availability for the
season is still 125 percent higher than the national food
needs.
Statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture indicate that
caloric output per capita currently stands at 2,515 and
3,315 per person per day, recommended by Food and
Agriculture Organisation( FAO).
"Market prices today for maize, beans, Irish potatoes and
other key commodities are below or at the same level they
were last year," Dr Agnes Kalibata, the minister for
agriculture, said in a statement released yesterday.
"All these are possible because since 2009 the ministry has
focused on poverty reduction whose production indicators
are much higher than food needs."
Climate change effect
Last season, the sector was hit hard by drought, affecting
parts of Southern and Eastern provinces and other parts of
the country.
Low productivity affected the economic performance of the
country, with just 4.6 per cent GDP growth for the sector
registered during 2013.
Efforts to increase productivity are ongoing, according to
Innocent Musabyimana, the deputy director in charge of
agricultural extension programmes at the Rwanda
Agricultural Board.
"The Board is concentrating on increased irrigation
mechanisms, land consolidation and fertiliser applications
to scale up production thus keeping the country's food
security situation under control," Musabyimana said.
We have also put in place climate change mitigation
measures at national and household level, including putting
in place enough strategic reserves to support families in
case the need arises anywhere around the country,
Musabyimana added.
According to the ministry, it is plausible to say that the
measures Rwanda has put in place are sufficient to mitigate
any impact that climate change might have had last season.
According to the National Institute of Statistics if Rwanda
(NISR) report of the first quarter 2014, agriculture sector
grew by 5 per cent and contributed 1.7 percentage points to
GDP growth.
The government is banking on the sector for job creation,
food security and export production.