Agriculture Sector

The agriculture sector shares 24% of Gross domestic product, Employs 62.2% of the labor force in Rwanda. The average land size per household is 0.5ha and total agriculture land is 1.4 million Ha. Rwanda is one of the densely populated countries with 571 per Km2 and the agriculture in Rwanda is majorly rainfed. Over the last two decades, through the Strategic Plan for Agriculture Transformation (PSTA) Rwanda has been aiming to transition from subsistence agriculture to market oriented agriculture and remarkable progress has been made. JICA has been part of this Journey through various cooperation responding to Rwanda’s aspiration in Agriculture sector including supporting irrigation infrastructure, its operation and maintenance, promoting business and market-oriented agriculture as well as enhancing capacity of counterpart institutions.

JICA has been involved in developing irrigation infrastructure in Ngoma and Rwamagana in the Eastern Province of Rwanda (The Project for Development of Irrigation Scheme in Ngoma District | ODA Project Website and The Project for Rehabilitation of Irrigation Facilities in Rwamagana District | ODA Project Website), with the aim of increasing agricultural productivity in one of the driest parts of the country and improving the socio-economic conditions of farmers in these areas.

Following the successful completion of these projects, JICA provided support for the capacity building of farmers in the operation and maintenance of the constructed irrigation schemes through the WAMCAB project, implemented from 2019 to 2025 (Project for Water Management and Capacity Building | ODA Project Website). The project aimed to strengthen Irrigation Water Users Organizations (IWUOs) in the target schemes, enabling them to properly maintain the infrastructure and ensure equitable water distribution among farmers.

WAMCAB2 aims to further enhance the capacity of stakeholders to implement and expand the WAMCAB approach developed under the first phase, particularly for effective water management in marshland areas, while also adapting it to hillside irrigation schemes in Kirehe and Nyagatare districts. In addition, the project strengthens stakeholders’ capacity to implement and extend the Market-Oriented Agriculture Extension Package within the hillside irrigation schemes, supporting improved agricultural practices and promoting market-oriented production.

Coffee plays a key role in the economy of the country, contributing to the foreign exchange earnings and to the monetization of rural economy. However, due to small land holding in Rwanda most of coffee producers are smallholder farmers with 200 or less coffee trees per household Rwanda finds its comparative advantage in producing high quality coffee which can fetch higher price on international market.

To respond to the Rwandan aspirations, in 2017, JICA launched the first coffee project under the name of “Coffee Upgrading and Promotion in Rwanda” which was known as CUP in short for a period of three years (hyperlink for CUP1). Given important milestone set by the project, the government of Rwanda requested JICA to sustain the project achievement through CUP2. On top of KOKAPAKI DUTEGURE from CUP1, JICA is supporting two more cooperatives to become model cooperatives including “Arabica coffee” in Ruhango District and “KOAKAKI” in Kirehe District. It has also continued to research on high value coffee variety through experimental farms set in various corners of the country. The goal of the research is to confirm the quality of those line tried in different microclimate and utilize it to position the uniqueness of Rwandan coffee on international coffee market.