Climate Change-Driven Postharvest Losses and Household Food Security in Kayonza District, Rwanda

Abstract

Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa are more susceptible to high losses during harvest and postharvest operations because of lack of appropriate technologies and management skills. For this reason, the Climate Resilient Postharvest and Agribusiness Support Project (PASP) was introduced in Rwanda by the United Nations International Fund for Agricultural Development to build the resilience of smallholder farmers to climate change, reduce postharvest losses, and increase farmers’ income. This study examines the contributions of PASP with respect to these objectives. Results indicate that majority of the farmers realized 319 ± 324.3 kg of maize and 139.82 ± 134.9 kg of beans on 2 ha or less area of land and lost 227.54 ± 215 kg of maize and 111.38 ± 92.4 kg of beans, respectively. We found that the dairy farmers sampled own 8.49 ± 5.9 cows, produce 16.84 ± 11.6 litres of milk, and lose 5.66 ± 5.7 l of milk. While many of the farmers have received trainings and built infrastructures to increase their resilience, some still experience on-farm and off-farm losses in the form of droughts and invasive pests. We found also that not many of the farmers have received training on irrigation. Fifty percent of the farmers sampled were food secure which may be connected to the serious drought in the district the last season. Overall, the research concludes that since climate change impacts agriculture in many ways, it is important to design multifaceted solutions that address these impacts altogether.