On Tuesday, February 7th the Delegation of the European Union to Rwanda together with Impact Hub Kigali invited the general public to an Open Discussion on the topic of feeding Rwanda’s growing urban population at the Impact Hub. From 18:30 the opportunities and obstacles were debated in a lively manner.
In his opening remarks Ambassador Michael Ryan, Head of EU Delegation to Rwanda, who facilitated the event articulated the burning question of the evening: “In a region where the urban population is projected to double by 2050, where still many are undernourished – how can we feed the people while still protecting the eco system?“
Urbanization – A glocal challenge
What does food security mean in the Rwandan context? And how does food production for urban areas foster business opportunities, economic development and regional integration? Those and more questions were being asked when the European Union’s Delegation to Rwanda hosted a public debate around urban food security on Tuesday evening.
Makiko Taguchi from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) gave some global context for the following discussion: „Urbanization is a global trend – therefore we all need to thing about urban sustainable development. Food is something that connects us all – and many elements in our lives: land and water, food distribution, transportation and markets. We cannot just look at productivity. A lot of food is lost between production and consumer and 1/3 of all food produced in the world gets wasted. Urbanization brings a change of needs and culture. There are many challenges but also many growing opportunities.“
While Dr. AthanaseMukuralinda from ICRAF Rwanda stressed the importance of organic matter and prevention of soil erosion for farming as fertile land is limited in Rwanda, Sarah Bilson form One Acre Fund Head tapped on the importance of capacity building: „The major challenge in Rwanda is to increase the productivity of small scale farmers to not only meet the needs of their own household. It is necessary to provide them access to funding, training and resources, but overall to train them in a business mind-set, so they are aware of the opportunities of the market.“
Diversity of opinions
The audience represented a large variety of professions, backgrounds and opinions, sprouting a lively debate that touched on numerous aspects of food security, rural food production and regional development in Rwanda and beyond. Among them was Honorable Minster of State from MINAGRI FulgenceNsengiyumva who contributed his views at the beginning of the evening.
Recurrent points emphasized by all panelists were environmental topics like climate change, sustainability and chemicals in food production. Makiko Taguchi elaborated that some of these challenges can also be solutions „Garbage can be an issue in urban environments but as fertilizer it can become a resource“.
Other points discussed were the importance of sharing agricultural knowledge, regional and cross-border trade as well as access to international markets, the role of women and the youth in agriculture, job opportunities arising from food production to „feed the cities“.
The overall sentiment shared by the participants was that urban markets provide large opportunities for smallholders. AttaherMaiga from FAO Rwanda said “Access to urban markets is a great opportunity for farmers that must be supported through policies. He continued to emphasise that the incorporation of food production in the urban context to enable the provision of nutritious food for the whole population. Therefore cities need to understand where the food is coming from and take their surroundings into account. This is also key to build a more resilient food systems as climate change is bringing an additional challenge to the issue.“
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