A new climbing variety of beans – which grows upwards and is three times more productive than bush beans – has been, over the past two years, successfully rolled-out by farmers in Rwanda. Improved types of climbing beans are even resistant to some of the most prevalent bean diseases in the region.
But will this be enough to ease the land pressure in Rwanda?
It has been a positive move that in this land-locked country, adoption of improved climbing beans developed by the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)-led Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA), with close support from the Rwanda Agricultural Research Institute (ISAR), was swift and widespread. Other initiatives, such as the nitrogen-fixing capability of legumes, which help improve soil fertility, will also support the growth of beans.
Yet it would be ideal to compound this with site-specific, climate-smart intensification practices, which are currently being evaluated by the Consortium for Improved Agricultural Livelihoods in Central Africa (CIALCA).
What is the alternative?
“We will be going back to the situation of war – and not because of ethnicity – war for food, war for space” is the ominous statement made by Nteranya Sanginga, the director of CIAT’s Nairobi-based Tropical Soil Biology and Fertility Institute (TSBF), at a press briefing in the CIALCA conference in Kigali on October 24, 2011 when highlighting the severity of land pressure in Rwanda.
Several experts have reiterated similar concerns considering that small and hilly Rwanda, with a population density of nearly 400 people per square kilometer, could – in a short period of time – face more land capacity problems with its strong population growth.
With practically every part of Rwanda under cultivation, the need for sustainable intensification is real and vital.
Photo credit: Neil Palmer/CIAT
See original item: War for food, war for space – the future for Central Africa?