Speaking to The New Times, farmers said that heavy rain was the major and common factor for decreased farm output for the two staple food crops in the season under review.
According to the NISR agriculture survey for season A, in the season under review, Irish potato cultivated area was estimated at more than 51,500 ha, an increase of 4 per cent when compared to 2019 season A estimates.
Vincent Havugimana, President of the Federation of Irish Potato farmers' cooperatives in Rwanda said that downpour involves higher investment in potato production because of the need for frequent use of fungicides to manage fungal diseases such as potato late blight.
"And, effective fungicides like ridomil that we use to protect potato crop from rain damage are expensive such that some farmers cannot afford them," he said, pointing out that a kilogramme of ridomil is Rwf20,000.
"I can say that heavy rain was responsible for about 40 percent of bean produce loss in parts of Northern Province," he said, indicating that lack of financial capacity and knowledge about the application of pesticides and fungicides to control diseases in bean crop is the main reason for their restricted use by farmers.
