As a new company, RFC was set to initiate its operations at the end of 2020, but in the face of the pandemic, it launched a crisis action plan prior to officially opening to help curb COVID-19\u2019s impact on agriculture. RFC is a newly created joint venture between the Government of Rwanda and OCP, a Morocco-based fertilizer producer and world leader in the phosphate industry.<\/p>\n
The emergency relief component of RFC\u2019s plan is a donation of 500 metric tons of DAP fertilizers to provide essential supplies to smallholder farmers. The donation will cover over 5.000 hectares of land for season 2021. <\/p>\n
The Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Dr. Gerardine Mukeshimana said that providing fertilizers to farms as part of emergency relief is in line with the government\u2019s ongoing COVID-19 response intended to build the resilience of the country\u2019s farmers, allowing them to increase productivity and continue producing enough to feed the population. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a significant contribution to our work to provide farmers with the essential nutrients needed to boost agricultural productivity, thus ensuring enough food supply.\u201d She added<\/p>\n
In addition to the short-term relief, RFC is implementing agricultural development programmes that will help Rwandan farmers to become more adaptive to crisis situations in the long-term. RFC is developing a partnership with the International Fertilizer Development Centre (IFDC) to support the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB) and RFC staff with regional training on blending soil-specific and crop-specific fertilizers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will ultimately enable the farmers to better understand their soil and create fertilizer solutions that are adapted to their crops and more resilient,\u201d according to the statement of MINAGRI. <\/p>\n
In total, almost 1.000.000 USD will be invested to set up more than 450 demonstration platforms to build capacity and increase market knowledge. The aim is to introduce farmers and relevant stakeholders to best farming practices for all stages of the harvest, from seed selection to nutrient management, mechanisation, and post-harvest handling. <\/p>\n
RFC\u2019s actions during the pandemic contribute to the recent calls from the African Union and Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on African states and partners to \u201csafeguard input supply chains for small-scale agricultural producers\u201d in the context of COVID-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rwanda Fertilizer Company (RFC) has been lauded by the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) for supporting Rwandan smallholder farmers with a comprehensive package enabling them to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[72],"byline":[2942],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-41502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-featured-news-home","byline-nicole-kamanzi-m"],"bylines":[{"id":2942,"name":"Nicole Kamanzi M.","slug":"nicole-kamanzi-m","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2942,"name":"Nicole Kamanzi M.","slug":"nicole-kamanzi-m","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41502\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41502"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=41502"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=41502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}