By: Jan-Willem Eggink

Last week, I visited Rwanda. In Kigali I spoke with our local partners involved in Agri-Business Cluster development. I was struck by the entrepreneurial spirit of the cluster leaders, most of them president of a farmers organization. It dawned upon me that a smallholder who produces cash-crops for the market is not yet necessarily an entrepreneur taking initiatives and doing investments to increase her/his profit.

The success of the IPER project and the Agri-Business Cluster approach in terms of increased production, according to Cluster Leaders, is mainly due to a change in attitude of many producers in the cluster. Simple measures, like learning farmers to calculate their cost-price per kilogram of produce, have an enormous influence on their self-confidence and negotiating power in the chain. Once they have experienced that investment leads to increased income and they understand the ‘game’, they become more and more entrepreneurial and start looking for new opportunities to increase their income, instead of just accommodating to what comes by. The steering committee recently visited some clusters and concludes the same. Please see the report of their mission here.

Entrepreneurial farmers need credit for their plans. For this reason, Agri-Hub Rwanda will pilot the organization of finance fairs to improve brokering of offer and demand for agricultural finance. An organizing committee has been formed and we intend to have a first finance fair in Musanze in the north of Rwanda by February 2012. Financing agencies and farmers will be given the opportunity to meet, to inform each other about whishes and conditions and to prepare deal-making. Besides banks and MFIs, also service providers, knowledge institutes on finance and the government will be involved.

A last interesting development is that several of our international partners have asked to start satellite Agri-Hubs in eastern Congo and Burundi. Espérance will explore these options further on the spot before the end of the year.

In the plane back to The Netherlands, I realized we have new opportunities and challenges ahead of us, but they do not scare me. The Agri-Hub Rwanda network is growing steadily in size and in connectivity. With so many competent people connected, we will be able to make a difference and contribute positively to the agricultural development of Rwanda.