Rwanda: Farmers push for affordable Irish potato seed

The soaring prices of Irish potato seed has left smallholder farmers lamenting, triggering efforts by different stakeholders to a seek remedy. The prices for seed  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 140, 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 seed. 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. The farmers also say that if they get affordable and highly productive seeds, they can get a good return on investment and consumers can get affordable produce. More