Government
and the private sector should work together to enhance the agriculture
sector and agribusiness development in the country, Attaher Maiga, the
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) representative in Rwanda, has
said.
Maiga noted that the move could attract more investments into the agriculture industry.
“It
is essential to boost the capacity of agro-enterprises and farmer
organisations. There is also need to engage public and private sectors
to develop uniform strategies that promote agribusiness investment to
increase productivity and the country’s growth,” Maiga said.
Maiga
was speaking during an East Africa Community and FAO regional workshop
on agribusiness and agro-industry investment promotion in Kigali The workshop attracted over 30 agro-economists, experts and dealers from across the region.
“Public-private
partnerships are critical to attract investments in the agriculture
sector... We urge stakeholders across the region to work together and
devise mechanisms that support agribusiness in the region,” Maiga said.
He
noted that the increasing global demand for high-value agricultural
products presents private investors a lot of opportunities to expand
their enterprises. He however decried the low investment into the
sector, saying this is affecting agriculture industry’s growth.
Emmanuel
Kamugisha, the agriculture and food security officer at the Rwanda
Ministry of East African Community Affairs, said efforts to step up
agribusiness support were ongoing.
“We
want to increase knowledge on appropriate methodologies and tools that
we can adapt to promote investment into the agriculture
sector,especially value addition and other activities along the value
chain,” Kamugisha said.
However,
it is also important to understand the sector needs and identify
challenges in the value chain to be able to come up with the appropriate
investment strategies, he added.
Innocent
Musabyimana, the Ministry of Agriculture permanent secretary, said the
size of the agricultural market in Africa is about $68.2 billion
annually (and still growing).
“Therefore, we should improve agriculture to benefit from this growing demand,” he said.
According to Musabyimana, embracing value addition is key to increase the competitiveness of the country’s agriculture exports.
Sector
experts, say EAC partner states need to define individual national
goals and agribusiness investment promotion strategies reap from growing
global food market.
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