The sub-sector context

New cash and export crops

The GoR endeavors to make the economy less dependent on the two traditional export crops. Initiatives in this respect are recent. Before the 1994 war, banana-apples were exported to Belgium (more than 100 tons per annum), spices, mostly pepper, to Switzerland (about 20 tons per annum). After the war, these markets have were lost. Pyrethrum has been exported for a long time, but quantities are constrained by the need to plant at very high altitude. Since the war, new opportunities have emerged. Several private enterprises have succeeded in developing production and marketing of products such as cut flowers (roses), passion fruit (maracuja), and gooseberry (Physalis peruviana), now sold in the European markets. Rwanda gooseberry also supplies one jam factory in Uganda. Efforts have been made for re-establishing the markets of banana-apple. Prospects for fresh pineapple and vanilla are currently being tested. Problems must be overcome in the processing of products, for example in the case of maracuja. Most Rwanda processing plants are tiny artisanal units that do not respect health standards, and often packing also a leaves good deal to be desired. A great potential exists for developing markets of “organic” products, since the new cash crops are generally grown without chemical fertilizers or other chemical inputs.

Some of the new cash crops can play a role in rural poverty reduction, although a note of caution is necessary with respect to the size and stability of the potential market of each one of the new crops. Farmers having invested in maracuja in Kigali-Ngali, for example, earn more than from coffee from a much smaller area grown to the new crop. The same holds in the case of women producing gooseberry for export from a limited area of the new crop grown in their home gardens. Vegetable growing in the peri-urban areas is also very remunerative for poor farmers, but requires access to land in the marais, drainage and irrigation.