Bananas are among Rwanda\u2019s main staple food widely harvested by the majority of farmers, yet the plantation faces many challenges including pests, infertile soils and low yield.<\/p>\n
However, all this can be turned around if more farmers are given competent farming skills, Julianus Thomas, the Farmer Field School (FFS) master trainer says.<\/p>\n
He said that FFS was formed two years ago in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) and the Belgian Development Agency (BTC) in order to train farmers on better planting skills on crops such as banana, maize, potatoes, cassava amongst others.<\/p>\n
Currently, in Rwanda a lot of efforts are enhanced in fighting pests attacks on banana plantations, the most common being banana-mild-mosaic-virus.<\/p>\n
Dr. Jean-Pierre Busogoro, the Technical Assistant BTC noted that among the ways to control the virus spread is by warming the sucker for 20 degrees Celsius before planting in order to kill the bacteria.<\/p>\n
\u201cFarmers should also sterilize their farming tools if they want to avoid spreading of the bacteria from an infected banana plant,\u201d he remarked.<\/p>\n
Dr. Busogoro spoke at the beginning of a 3 day regional conference involving experts from East and central Africa, organized to exchange experiences based on better practices in various aspects of the banana value chain such as the introduction and dissemination of banana improved varieties.<\/p>\n
He further pointed out that competence matters a lot since it strengthens the production of traditional banana plants which many fear might become extinct due to the introduction of modern varieties that have better yield.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s nothing unique with exotic bananas, the difference is that they are planted through the use of modern expertise skills which can be applied to the traditional ones and give better results,\u201d he clarified.<\/p>\n
Among the techniques being disseminated are the use of fertilizer, pesticides and irrigation.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve seen farmers who have done all this on their traditional bananas and have seen their yield improve from 15kg to 75kg,\u201d Bugosoro stressed.<\/p>\n
Thomas on his part says that some banana species can be multiplied in the laboratory in what is also known as tissue culture. So far two Americans investors have showed interests to start the business in Rwanda.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bananas are among Rwanda\u2019s main staple food widely harvested by the majority of farmers, yet the plantation faces many challenges including pests, infertile soils and low yield. However, all this can be turned around if more farmers are given competent farming skills, Julianus Thomas, the Farmer Field School (FFS) master trainer says. He said that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"byline":[158],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-451","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","byline-b_igi_adm1n"],"bylines":[{"id":158,"name":"b_igi_adm1n","slug":"b_igi_adm1n","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":1}],"contributors":[{"id":158,"name":"b_igi_adm1n","slug":"b_igi_adm1n","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":1}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}