Rwanda: Potato farmers outraged over seed price
The prices for seeds, now between Rwf600 and Rwf700, are soaring at the time when farmers are getting little from the produce, with the farm price for a kilogramme of Irish potato now down to between Rwf110 and 110, according to farmers from Northern and Western provinces - the region where the crop is predominantly grown.
Although improved seeds produced by the Rwanda Agriculture Board (RAB) are sold at between Rwf300 and Rwf320, it reaches farmers at twice the price, a situation that has been attributed to the shortage of the seeds.
The farmers say the gains from their harvest is disproportionate to the investment made, given other costs for inputs like fetilisers, insecticides and labour that they have to cover.
"Seeds should be subsdised so that we can get them at least for Rwf300 a kilogramme or, at most, Rwf400 for us to get meaningful profit from our farming activities," Adrien Ntawukiramwabo, a farmer from Burera District, told The New Times.
1 RWF = 0.0012 USD
source: allafrica.com
