The Rwandan agrarian and land sector modernisation: confronting macro performance with lived experiences on the ground

Abstract

Rwanda has embarked on an ambitious policy package to modernise and professionalise the agrarian and land sector. Its reform fits into a broader callsupported by major international donorsto implement a Green Revolution in Sub-Saharan Africa. After 10 years of implementation, there is increased production output and value-addition in commercialised commodity chains. These are promising results. However, poverty reduction, particularly in more recent years, seems limited. Moreover, microlevel evidence from the field calls into question the long-term sustainability of the agricultural and land sector reform. In this article, a group of researchers, having engaged in in-depth qualitative research in a variety of settings and over an extended period, bring together their main research results and combine their key findings to challenge the dominant discourse on Rwanda as a model for development. La modernisation agricole et foncière au Rwanda : confronter les résultats macro-économiques aux réalités vécues sur le terrain RÉSUMÉ Le Rwanda a entamé une vaste réforme politique visant à moderniser et à professionnaliser les secteurs agricole et foncier. Soutenu par des bailleurs internationaux, ces réformes s'inscrivent dans une volonté plus large d'introduire une Révolution Verte en Afrique subsaharienne. Après une décennie de mise en oeuvre au Rwanda, on observe des résultats prometteurs tels que la croissance de la production agricole et la création de valeur ajoutée dans les filières agricoles commerciales. Néanmoins, la réduction de la pauvreté au

The domestic political economy of upgrading in global value chains: how politics shapes pathways for upgrading in Rwanda’s coffee sector*

“…Most of the literature on Rwanda's rural sectors have characterized this a negative attitude towards smallholder farming (Ansoms, 2009;Huggins, 2017). In a recent review article, leading scholars on Rwanda's agriculture sector conclude that the government 'intends to co-opt farmers into a state-managed system of commercialization and to render them more dependent on state services as well as private firms and banks providing hybrid seeds, fertilisers and credit' (Ansoms et al, 2018). This article takes a less critical view, arguing that the government has developed an upgrading strategy, which reflected the difficult relationship it had with rural producers and the challenges that Rwandan coffee would have in accessing specialty coffee markets.…”

Who is resilient in Africa’s Green Revolution? Sustainable intensification and Climate Smart Agriculture in Rwanda

“…However, several recent studies have documented crucial shortcomings of the CIP. These include inequitable provision of inputs that bypass the poorest households ( Cioffo et al, 2016 ; Ansoms et al, 2018 ), impingement on smallholders’ decision-making autonomy ( Van Damme et al, 2014 ), increased land sales by the rural poor ( Dawson et al, 2016 ), decreased food security among the poorest groups of smallholders, and justice implications that arise when the households that are least able to succeed with the CIP are the most compelled to adopt it (Clay, 2017). The present article builds on these assessments by considering climate resilience amid the CIP.…”

Sustainability of Agricultural Crop Policies in Rwanda: An Integrated Cost–Benefit Analysis

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“…To reach its target goals, the Rwandan Government sets targets to which it binds subnational governments via a particular performance contract mechanism called Imihigo contracts [2]. This is one of the various home-grown systems introduced by the government.…”