The Ministry for Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of United nations (FAO-Rwanda) has launched the “agricultural digital services” developed for bringing agricultural services closer to rural farmers using the digital technologies.
Those digital platforms, unveiled on 3rd December 2019 in Rulindo District, are meant to enable farmers easily access services regarding weather and crop calendar, cure and feed their livestock, agri-market place, e-nutrifood and Fall Armyworm monitoring and early warning system.
The ceremony was attended by students from the Integrated polytechnic Regional College ( IPRC) Tumba, farmers, private sector actors, civil society and academic institutions , FAO and others.
Speaking during the event, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources, Jean Claude Musabyimana, thanked FAO for their good collaboration in developing innovations that contribute a lot in improving livelihoods of Rwandans. He noted that these digital services will help Rwandan farmers to increase their agriculture productivity.
“These services will support your efforts to increase production both in quantity and quality,” he told the farmers.
These services had been tested by the farmers in Rulindo District. Rwanda is the 1st country in Africa to officially launch them.
“These applications have been piloted in both Rwanda and Senegal and started to be scaled up in the other developing countries in Africa. In this process, Rwanda is serving a role of model,” said Gaulbert Gbehounou, the FAO Rwanda Country Representative.
These services are available via smart phone on this link : digital.apps.fao.org. A user should also register him/herself by sending SMS to“0789409913” and in future to “5790”.
The services are available in 8 languages but for the users in Rwanda should choose a language between Kinyarwanda, French and English