Rwanda’s Kayonza District, part of Eastern Province, is a land of softly rolling hills. Cheerful sunflowers and tall, bright-green succulents line the road leading to the home of Marie Mukamana and Wensislas Muhawenimana. A scattering of banana trees dots the couple’s farmland.
Compared to other parts of mountainous Rwanda, the hills of Eastern Province are gentle. But the sun is harsh and becoming harsher.
“In this region, we’ve faced climate and seasonal changes,” says Mukamana. Droughts are becoming more common. Rain comes unpredictably, and when it falls, it falls heavily. Commonly grown crops like maize and beans sometimes survive the drought periods, only to rot in the wet weather.
Researchers at the University of Notre Dame rank Rwanda as the 32nd most climate vulnerable country out of 185 countries assessed. (The U.S. is in 168th place, while Canada is ranked 178th.) The impacts of climate change are disproportionately felt by rural farmers like Mukamana and Muhawenimana.
When crops fail, farmers don’t have enough food to feed their families and may not have money to buy food at the market. Before she learned to adapt to a rapidly changing climate, Mukamana remembers, “I would sow one bucket of seeds of beans and harvest two (buckets) of them. To sum up, I was starving.”
But with the conservation agriculture techniques Mukamana and Muhawenimana are learning through Collectif des Artisans de Paix et la Reconciliation (CAPR; Collective of Peace and Reconciliation Builders), the couple’s concerns about food are falling away.
“Currently if I sow five kilograms of beans, I will reap a hundred kilograms or ninety,” Mukamana shares. “Every morning I wake up full of joy because I had eaten last night and still have stock in the house.”
Conservation agriculture is an approach to farming that increases crop yields and resilience by enriching soil health. It involves crop rotation, soil cover and minimum tillage.
Healthier soil leads to crops that are greener, fuller, taller and more likely to withstand droughts and heavy rain. Conservation agriculture also stabilizes the soil, helping to prevent erosion and destructive landslides.
As the impacts of climate change intensify across the country, these techniques are needed more than ever.
Planting seeds of change
To respond to the devastating impacts of climate change, a consortium of Rwandan organizations is helping farmers adapt using conservation agriculture.
CAPR is one of five organizations that together work as Peace and Development Network (PDN), an MCC partner. Whereas CAPR works in the drought-prone Eastern Province, Peace and Durable Development (PDD) works in the cloud-kissed highlands of the Burera District, Northern Province, where Vincent Hategekimana and Verena Nyirantezimana live and farm.
The Rwanda Environment Management Authority, a government agency, reports that rain in the north has increased the prevalence of landslides, including deadly ones that swept through Hategekimana and Nyirantezimana’s community in 2023.
On a cool, drizzly January day, the couple, who has been married for 40 years, sit in their courtyard. Hategekimana has donned a black suit jacket and knit hat; his wife wears a red sweater and headscarf.
“This period used to be sunny, but seasons have changed,” Hategekimana says. “If it was sunny, I wouldn’t have a cap on. This is to keep me warm. As you see, my wife is wearing the headscarf due to this rain.”
He gestures to a damp heap of beans behind him. “If it was sunny, we could be grinding these beans, however, we can’t because they are not yet fully dry for today. It could even be like this for more days.”
Nyirantezimana says, “This year was catastrophic, because there was a lot of rain, and beans perished. These beans … survived because we used conservation agriculture.”
Hategekimana first learned about conservation methods while walking through his community. He came across a cornfield full of tall, deep-green stalks, markedly healthier than the maize he was growing.
He noticed that the farmers working in the field were using techniques different from his own. He asked if they would teach him — and was graciously received.
“They did not ask me for any entrance fee,” Hategekimana recalls.
The plot Hategekimana came across was a farmer field school established by PDD. Field school members try out conservation agriculture techniques at communal plots before applying the practices to their own land. Each farmer can take a set amount of crops from the communal plot for their families. They sell the rest as a group. This joint selling power enables them to continue caring for the shared plot and buy supplies, seeds and sometimes adjacent parcels of land ahead of the next season. Partner staff work with the groups to generate yearly sales reports, which are shared with all members.
When farmers have questions about their communal plot or own farms, they can approach field staff from their local PDN member organization.
To help conservation agriculture take root in the country, members of the field schools are required to teach the techniques to five more farmers. Finding interested people is rarely a challenge. Hategekimana, who once approached other farmers for advice, is now the trainer, and people now come to him with questions. His farmer field school is across the road from a plot that uses conventional agriculture techniques. The difference in crop health is clear to passers-by.
Some farmers have even adopted practices like mulching simply from observing the techniques his farmer field school uses.
“As we progress, they will keep emulating,” he says.
How scarcity leads to conflict
The five organizations that comprise PDN each formed in the years after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi, in which moderate Hutu were also killed. Each organization worked to grow social cohesion and bridge the divides exacerbated by former colonial rule in the country.
As ethnic tension in Rwanda defused, poverty and food insecurity emerged as the leading causes of conflict. As growing seasons become less reliable, conflicts — especially those between family members — are escalating. “Climate change issues make conflicts worse because when there is no rain, the household is affected by lacking water, food and such,” says Anastase Nduwayezu, assistant project coordinator with PDN. He says that this scarcity causes conflict when family members disagree on how to allocate their limited resources.
Recognizing that food security is central to achieving peace, PDN and its member organizations started their conservation agriculture work in 2015 in collaboration with MCC and Canadian Foodgrains Bank (CFGB).
Promoting peace at home
PDN’s member organizations also offer training on conflict resolution and gender equality.
These sessions help farmers navigate disagreements caused by scarcity, but also those that sprout from abundance. As Nduwayezu explains, “When there’s a good harvest, sometimes there is conflict in the house related to how they manage the yield.”
Before he and Nyirantezimana attended trainings hosted by PDD, Hategekimana recalls, “I would make decisions on my own. I would decide what and where to cultivate. I would decide to plant beans whereas she (Nyirantezimana) wanted potatoes.” Nyirantezimana adds, “We would do it in disarray and it was not giving us any result.”
The trainings taught them how to make decisions about the farm together, which has transformed both the health of their crops and their relationship. “I cannot do it alone, neither can she,” Hategekimana says. “We complete each other.”
Making impactful investments
Mukamana has bettered her own life by joining a local village savings and loan association, which CAPR established. These savings groups allow farmers to save money, accrue interest and obtain loans.
Jeanne Francoise Maniragena joined her savings group in Burera District about nine years ago. Today, she is the group’s secretary.
Before joining, she recalls, “If I earned 1,000 Rwandan francs (US$0.73), I squandered all of it. I would spend it on the very same day.” Now, she puts half of her income into savings.
Mukamana shares what she has learned from CAPR training with other households. “I have resolved social conflicts in more than five families,” she says. She has helped resolve disagreements between spouses, and between parents and their adult children. Her outreach is guided by a Kinyarwanda phrase “abyaye ikiboze irakirigata,” meaning “a parent’s love is unconditional.”
“If I had never been trained in conflict resolution among families, I would not be able to help,” Mukamana says. But the training equipped her with a sense of duty to intervene, and the tools to do so.
Village savings and loan association members meet regularly to make decisions about group finances and operations. Maniragena says that this process hasn’t caused any conflict among members. “It seems God created us with the same purpose,” she observes. However, PDN and its member organizations are ready to help savings groups with mediation should a disagreement arise.
As the impacts of climate change intensify, the ability to borrow money provides assurance to savings group members. “When there are effects of climate change and crops are destroyed, we can get a loan … to solve any issue at that moment,” says Maniragena. Loans can be used to buy food should flooding or droughts bring lean harvests. And the ability to accrue interest helps families build their savings even when they can’t make money off what they grow.
Advocate and adapt with MCC
So far, the conservation agriculture efforts of PDN, CFGB and MCC have reached farmers in five of Rwanda’s 30 districts. Now, MCC staff members in Rwanda are beginning to work with the United Nations World Food Program to engage farmers in five more districts. The hope is that one day, MCC can promote conservation agriculture nationwide.
“There is no doubt that conservation agriculture is improving livelihoods, but again, making sure that it is reaching many people is our task,” says Alphonsine Mutako Vedasto, a program manager with MCC. “There is still a gap that can be closed by enough investment.”
Conservation agriculture is not just improving crop yields for farmers in Rwanda. This kind of climate action is bringing peace and security to their communities and their families.
Will you help farmers by fostering peace through climate action?
In the U.S. and Canada we have an opportunity and a moral obligation to act. According to World Bank data, the U.S. and Canada are much less vulnerable to climate change than Rwanda, but the countries are two of the biggest greenhouse gas emitters. In 2020, they produced 13 and 13.6 metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita respectively. Meanwhile, Rwanda produced just 0.1 metric tons per capita.
As MCC staff and partners in Rwanda work to train farmers in conservation agriculture, it is crucial that the U.S. and Canadian governments invest in climate mitigation and adaptation, both domestically and worldwide.
Here are some ways to help farmers in Rwanda and around the world remain on solid ground:
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