With adaptation finance needs estimated at about US$ 50 billion a year for Sub-Saharan Africa, the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Government of Rwanda are playing their part by launching the Rwanda Dairy Development Project (RDDP) phase II.
The US$ 100.37 million project will build on the successes of the previous phase by scaling up sustainable interventions along the dairy value chain that improves efficiencies, access to markets, nutrition, increase productivity and reduce poverty for rural poor households in 27 districts in Rwanda over the next six years.
“IFAD is pleased to scale up our investment in the dairy sector following a successful phase one of the project. The new phase will aim to improve efficiencies in the value chain by leveraging digitization and private sector financing that transform food systems, improve incomes and nutrition of Rwandans,” said Dagmawi Habte-Selassie, IFAD Country Director, Rwanda.
The dairy sector in the country has grown significantly over the years with milk production increasing nine-fold shifting the country from a milk importer to becoming self-sufficient. With the increase in production, individual consumption has increased from 20 litres in 2006 to 75 litres annually in 2021, with the potential to improve nutritional status of children.
“The dairy sector in Rwanda has achieved major milestones in the country including increasing production, constructing storage facilities and market linkages for farmers. With the increased intensity and frequency of climate change, action needs to be taken if we are to safeguard the achievements made. Therefore, RDDP2 comes at an opportune time to help us safeguard these gains and build resilience of small-scale farmers, while transforming food systems in the country,” said Dr. Olivier Kamana, Permanent Secretary at Rwanda’s Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources.
The dairy sector is being impacted by climate change, with Rwanda ranked as the 32nd most vulnerable country and at risk to numerous natural hazards contributing to food insecurity, economic and environmental losses. As a result, the sector is experiencing reduced production, increased disease occurrences, limited access to water and feed. In addition, the situation is compounded by limited access to artificial insemination services, poor waste management and lack of access to extension services by small-scale farmers.
To address the low milk production, RDDP phase II will encourage farmers to adopt zero grazing and replace the local breeds with improved breeds that produce more milk reducing the need to keep many cows. To sustain the increased production, the project will support farmers establish mixed pastures intercropping fodder and food crops, increase access to water by promoting water harvesting at household level and bring extension services closer to the farmers.
A lot of money is lost along the dairy value chain from production to consumption due to inefficiencies. To address this, the project will build the capacities of small-scale farmers to transport milk to collection centres in a timely manner, strengthen capacities of dairy cooperatives to run milk collection centres efficiently, leverage renewable energy to power milk storage facilities to reduce energy costs, promote local small-scale milk processing to reduce market linkage costs and digitisation of the value chain to track milk from production to the market.
RDDP phase II is funded by IFAD US$20.5 million, Government of Rwanda’s (GoR) US$17.64 million, OPEC Fund US$20 million, GCF US$8.5 million, Equity Bank Rwanda US$10.0 million, Heifer International US$6.0 million, and project participants US$9.52 million.
