The government needs to extend its seed subsidy programme to the whole country to cover the bean crop and attract more farmers.

This comes a­fter Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) released 19 new varieties of beans to the farmers in the Burera District of Northern province that researchers indicate hold high promise on nutrition and yield.

Jean Pierre Mbagurire , country manager of Harvest Plus, a non-governmental organisation focusing on agriculture but worked with the government to produce the new bean varieties, says the cost of producing seed is high.

“This leads to a high price of seed compared to the price of grain. The improved bean varieties, especially iron/bio fortified beans, pass through the certification process. Consequently, the price of certified seed is high as the requirements to produce seed are different from those of producing grain for consumption…” said Mr Mbagurire, adding that to lower the price, it would require introducing another category of seed with lower standards (quality declared seed) in the community.

Research by RAB shows a Rwandan consumes 200 grammes of beans per day on average.

Beans are considered a staple food in Rwanda. For an average Rwandan diet, beans provide 32 percent of the calorie intake and as much as 65 percent of the protein intake; whereas animal-sourced food provides only four percent of protein intake.

“Biofortified beans offer 30 percent more iron than the common beans grown in Rwanda that provide about 60 percent of the daily iron needs,” Mbagurire observed.

According to agronomic scientists, the new varieties of beans offer more nutritious benefits and higher yields.

“Eight of these varieties are highly concentrated with iron and zinc, which we believe will play a vital role in combating malnutrition among the elderly and the children, but these varieties can withstand destruction,” said Edouard Rurangwa, chief scientist at RAB in charge of cereals.

According to RAB, the last time the bean varieties were released was in 2012, and nearly 30 varieties were released.

However, with only 13 remaining in the system, most of them have gradually become less resistant to disease.

Currently, the bean productivity stands at 1.5 metric tonnes per hectare, while the newly released varieties can do as much as five metric tonnes a hectare.

“We have been processing only two varieties of beans due to limited availability, but with the new varieties, we are certainly going to process more and avail more choices to the consumers,” said Andrew Nizeyimana, sales manager at Fresh Farm Ltd.

Farmers now want government subsidy on the crop. “Bean seeds are expensive, and the farmers that are committed to doing bean farming are meeting that cost at 100 percent, which often pushes them for the lower yield varieties,” said Alex Nzeyimana, a farmer and agro dealer in seeds multiplication from Karembo sector in Ngoma district.

However, Ministry of Agriculture officials are not keen on an extension of the subsidy. “We extend the government agriculture subsidy coverage on a crop to encourage people to tap into but it’s not something permanent.

On beans, we are currently working with multipliers of the seeds,” said Dr Charles Bucagu, the deputy Director-General of Agriculture Research and Technology Transfer at RAB.

The Ministry of Trade and that of Agriculture among other players every year set the price on the seeds. For the current season,. the price is Rwf1, 540 per kilo, while the subsidized maize and soja varieties are around Rwf450 per kilo.

Currently, the agriculture subsidy scheme covers around 79 percent of the locally produced maize seeds to promote their use, while those imported are subsidised by only 40 percent.

The government subsidises 69 percent of soja seeds as the farmers pay Rwf425 of Rwf1,400 actual price of soja seeds per kilo, while on wheat seeds, the government covers 70.8 percent of the actual cost as the farmers pay Rwf346 per kilo of Rwf1,200 of the actual price.

“Rwandans are largely cultivating beans for home consumption, but there is a huge potential in the international market. We have some varieties that are now exported to South African, German, and Asia,” Eddy Frank Rugamba, the value chain specialist at Kilimo Trust Ltd, a not-for-profit agricultural organisation.