Some farmers from Gatsibo district have adopted contract farming where they sign agreements with produce buyers and sell the impending harvests before time of harvesting in a bid to earn an income and meet household needs.
The system Gatsibo residents call “pourcent” is practiced through selling crops before maturity. It is exercised by farmers experiencing too much poverty but get very little money from rich farmers after signing contracts on how to settle transactions when harvesting is due. Some farmers have however cried foul over the system, saying they are paid peanuts by produce buyers.
“We often spend earnings from the harvests on paying debts. When I borrow Rwf10,000 from a produce buyer, he/she may take about three bags of sorghum as a repayment, with each bag weighing one hundred kilograms from which they may get about Rwf 40,000. We lose a lot,” laments Mukamabano Daforoza, a resident of Rwikiniro cell, Rwimbogo sector.
The acting mayor of Gatsibo district, Nzabonimpa Emmanuel, has encouraged farmers to save for hard up days to avoid such outright losses and sell their produce to licensed buyers using well known measures of scale other than using random measurements such as cups and bowls.
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