Vegetable farmer Zainab Byukusenge, 44, grows beans, garlic, onions and Irish potatoes on her one hectare of arable land in the Rubavu District of Western Rwanda.

She says her yields have increased and her income has improved thanks to skills and knowledge she aquired at a training workshop on Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and other farming practices that take biodiversity into account. 

“I was surprised recently: I sold my Irish potatoes and earned RWF 400 000 (USD 400)," commented Ms Byukusenge. "Before knowing the importance of taking care of biodiversity, I used to get barely RWF 100 000 (USD 100) from the same amount of land."

The workshop was organized by a Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) programme that supports African, Caribbean and Pacific countries implementing Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs). 

The European Union-funded programme is now in its third phase and is also known as ACP MEAs 3. 

"Friends of farmers" can save you money

Biodiversity includes organisms that can help farmers grow crops successfully, such as bees and birds that pollinate crops,  earthworms that keep soils healthy and microorganisms that are capable of acting as biological control agents. The indiscriminate and inappropriate use of pesticides can critically harm these beneficial organisms or so-called "friends of farmers".

“I used to spend money on expensive pesticides and chemical fertilizers. But now everything I do is measured. I know the importance of organic fertilizers and of preserving 'friends of farmers',” Ms Byukusenge said.

For example, she now collects earthworms, which help increase the fertility of salty soils.

“Now I take the time to preserve some of the insects I see on my farm, which as I learned in the training, are natural enemies of pests," she said. "I'm saving a lot of money."

Excessive use of chemicals on farms causes soil contamination and therefore nutritional stress, which in the long run puts food security in jeopardy. Healthy, uncontaminated and biodiversity-rich soils are a prerequisite for sustainable food security. 

Thirty farmers graduate from FAO Farmer Field School

Ms Byukusenge is one of 30 farmers from six districts — Kayonza, Musanze, Nyabihu, Rubavu, Rulindo, and Rwamagana — who graduated from a FAO Farmer Field School (FFS) on 10 February 2022. 

Along with her fellow graduates, she has become an FFS facilitator, supporting and training other farmers in her community to adopt more biodiversity-friendly approaches such as IPM.

While handing certificates to the 30 brand-new FFS facilitators, FAO Assistant Representative in Rwanda Otto Vianney Muhinda said: “The European Union is a great and important partner. Thanks to its unwavering and fruitful partnership with FAO, agriculture in Rwanda is dramatically changing for the better. Yields are increasing, and Rwanda’s mountainous farms are ecologically well preserved.”

More capacity development needed

Like other FFS facilitators, Ms Byukusenge says gaps remain in their capacity to target markets strategically, to formulate agricultural projects, and to read and analyze chemical fertilizer and pesticide labels.

“It's still hard to know when to take my fresh produce to market — to measure the cropping season and know when to grow what, so that by harvest time that product is scarce and I can earn good money at the market," she said.