Consultations on 4th Strategic Plans for the Transformation of Agriculture kick off

The Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) has started collecting inputs from different agricultural stakeholders that will be incorporated in the 4th Strategic Plans for the Transformation of Agriculture (PSTA4). The move is vital to help the ministry get innovative ideas that will spur the agriculture sector into uncharted areas with great success.

The process was launched on April 21, 2017 in Kigali during a one-day workshop that was officiated by the ministry’s Permanent Secretary Jean Claude Kayisinga. The workshop was meant to prompt dialogue among key stakeholders so that they can develop an appropriate plan for boosting participation in the development process of PSTA4; and build a broad & effective coalition to lead the transformation of the agriculture sector in Rwanda.

As the current PSTA3 is ending in June 2018, PS Kayisinga noted, MINAGRI is embarking on the process of developing the PSTA4 which coincides with the revision and update of the 2004 national agriculture policy. He also added that the ministry recognizes the need to ensure a participatory and inclusive consultative process to improve ownership, quality and relevance of the agriculture strategy in order to enhance implementation in due course.

Over the last decade, Rwanda has implemented three strategic plans for the transformation of agriculture (PSTA1, PSTA2, and PSTA3) to implement the 2004 national agriculture sector policy. These are fully aligned with high-level national strategic and policy documents such as vision 2020 and edprs1 and edprs2. The PSTAs were also aligned to international, continental and regional agreements and protocols such as the comprehensive Africa agriculture development program (CAADP).

“With regards to CAADP, Rwanda agricultural strategic programs have spearheaded the CAADP process and served as an example of successful agricultural development across the continent, and our programs will continue to align with the new CAADP Malabo declaration and the international sustainable development goals (SDGs),” pointed out Kayisinga.

According to the Permanent Secretary, Rwanda has attained remarkable progress through the operationalization of programs and subprograms of the current PSTA 3. This remarkable progress include food and cash crops production that has increased significantly, and poverty reduced at 39.1% in 2015-16) from 44.9% 2010-11. The agricultural sector GDP also grew at 5% per annum contributing to a sustained national economic growth of the country while the sector contributed a third of the national gross domestic product for the recent years.

He added that Rwanda has made great progress in improving food security and reducing hunger thanks to PSTA3 programs: from 1990 to 2015, prevalence of undernourishment fell by nearly half, from 56% to 32%.

Since January 2017, the ministry organized a number of consultation meetings with development partners and in the Sector Working Group. Early this month, it commissioned a quick survey to gauge the perception of grassroots stakeholders vis-à-vis the performance of the agriculture sector. The exercise is intended to assess the current status of the sector and to identify the existing challenges at local level mainly in areas of crop and animal productivity, private sector, access to finance, nutrition, extension and management.

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