agroecology, a lasting response to demographic pressure

The entrance to his house no longer looks like a courtyard, but a botanical garden. Joséphine, 62, huts like a child between maze of spinach, beet or eggplant shoots. “There, I even planted strawberries and lawyers!” “Rejoices this resident of Musanze, a district of the province of northern Rwanda.

The woman with short curly hair, however, still has her feet placed on the hard ground and not sunk in the earth. In this vegetable garden, fruits and vegetables are planted in large flower pots, old jute bags and even … tires!

The available land is rare

In this rural environment where 83 % of the Rwandan population lives, agriculture is omnipresent. Everyone often cultivates for their own diet. But with a population that skyrocketed – from 8 million inhabitants in the early 2000s to 14 million today – the available land is rare.

It is one of the highest levels of density in the Great Lakes region. When it rises to 67 people per square kilometer in Tanzania or 229 in Uganda, two neighboring countries, Rwanda has 503 per square kilometer. An even very low number with regard to the predictions of the 2050s, which bring it to 894 people per square kilometers.

Agriculture weighs almost 25% of GDP

In addition, the monoculture fields have replaced the diversified plots of culture over the decades. This season, the green landscapes are drawn by the immense expanses of corn crops. Then it will be wheat. But conventional agriculture, most of the time intensive, damages the soils which are increasingly difficult to regenerate.

“We were colonized by pesticides,” deplores a resident. Key sector of the Rwandan economy, agriculture weighs almost 25 % of GDP and employs three quarters of the population. Apart from tea and coffee, cultivated foods are intended for domestic consumption.

Many climatic hazards

Above all, the tropical country is on the front line in the face of climate change, the consequences of which are terrible for harvests. In the middle of the rainy season in May 2023, mud torrents won the life of 135 people and flooded whole fields. Nearly 20,000 inhabitants had to be moved. To this worrying table, are added floods, landslides and periods of drought increasingly devastating.

In the land of the thousand hills, many peasants find themselves without land of land, however essential to provide for their needs. Then, taken between two stages, that of demographic tension on the one hand and degradation of biodiversity and climatic hazards on the other, agroecology is gradually starting to make its place. It is a resilient and sustainable, alternative to intensive agricultural production mode which uses the ecological and economic potential of a territory.

Four years ago, Joséphine began to cultivate in her Courette. Solution notably carried by the NGO Acord Rwanda, supported by the Solidarity CCFD-Terre.

“I harvest all year round,” says this retired teacher. Previously, it mainly sowed seeds of beans and potatoes, the main diet in the rural environment. Exit the use of synthetic inputs such as fertilizers or pesticides, unlike the neighbor of Joséphine, whose corn stems that grow in disorder hide her house. “She sows on the fly,” says Joséphine, mimicking a gesture of the hand as if she threw confetti.

A return to local seeds

She learned to cultivate as in time, like almost 600 households in the Musanze district. In homes, compost has appeared. And in these cultures, fertilizers like nitrogen, phosphorus or potassium have been replaced by the urine of cows or chicken droppings. Then, the leaves of corn, sorghum or banana are now used to recover the soil in order to avoid its drying out.

Finally, we do not skimp on agroforestry, alloy of several plants. Thus, the planting of reeds, recognized as a pesticide plant or certain plants which protect against soil erosion, are new practices welcome. We also go back to local seeds: multicolored corn or sorghum increasingly fill the plates of the inhabitants. “The COVID-19 has relearnted us to eat well. Before, we ate Ukrainian wheat instead of feeding on sorghum, a much more nutritious plant prized by our ancestors, ”explains François Munyentwari, director of Acord Rwanda.

Extreme drought

Agroecology appears to be an effective solution for small -scale crops. But there remains a downside – and not the least – which it is difficult to face. The lack of water. In this tropical country where the year is divided between the rainy season and the dry season, the latter nibbles more and more from the field.

If Acord Rwanda provides rainwater collectors to farmers who have taken the turn of agroecology, the bins are struggling to fill. “We have never seen such a dry February,” abounds Modeste, professor of geography in the Rwinzovu public school group, still in the north of the country. He also initiates around forty students to agroecology and cultivate local products together which will be cooked in the 2100 students of the school.

Among these young volunteers, many of them want to become agronomists. But if the drops do not fall from the sky in the coming weeks, no need to hope for a good harvest. Faced with this harsh reality, perhaps these future agronomists will find the miracle solution.