Improving Life

CATALIST

Burundi • DR Congo • Rwanda

Catalyze Agricultural Intensification for Social and Environmental Stability

a project for the great lakes region of central africa

Success Story

Rwandan farmer Epiphanie Marcelline improved her life through ISFM and membership in a Farmers’ Organization

I

n 2007, Epiphanie Marcelline, a 53-year old farmer in the Gicumbi district of Rwanda’s Northern Province, did not know that she could improve her life by producing surplus crops. To survive, she had always farmed her 80-year old mother’s small plot of land. “I didn’t produce enough for the market, I only produced enough for my mother and me to eat,” explains Marcelline.

M

arcelline admits that when she decided to join CATALIST’s agriculture intensification program she was destitute. “I had no proper clothes and felt ashamed to walk the streets,” she remembers. Now, when she walks along with a sense of purpose, her neighbors remark, “Here comes V.I.P.!”

In partnership with CATALIST, CARITAS-Rwanda identified farmers who qualified for testing Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM) techniques.

ISFM is the key to increasing agricultural productivity while protecting the environment and maintaining (or even enhancing) the soil resource base.

ISFM strategies center on the combined use of mineral fertilizers and locally available organic amendments (crop residues, compost and green manure) to replenish lost soil nutrients. This improves both soil quality and the efficiency of fertilizers and other agricultural inputs (seeds, crop protection products and water). In addition, ISFM promotes improved crop management practices, measures to control erosion and leaching and techniques to improve soil organic matter maintenance.

The main criterion for participation was that the farmer own 10 ares of erosion-protected land. However, Marcelline’s land was officially owned by her elderly mother and the land had a slight slope which potentially could suffer from erosion.

Nevertheless, Marcelline would not accept that she did not qualify; she quickly took the initiative to install antierosion ditches and planted grasses to help hold the soil in place. She showed up each day to convince the agronomist responsible for selecting participants that she was a viable candidate. At the end of the selection process, she became a part of the 39-member farmers’ organization in her area growing wheat using IFSM techniques.

Marcelline was amazed when she discovered that she had produced an unprecedented 170 kilos of wheat and her association had produced a total of eight tons of wheat. Instead of selling small quantities as they might have done previously, her farmer’s organization offered the entire eight tons of wheat to a large wholesale buyer who enthusiastically purchased all of it.

After paying for her inputs, labor and transport, she made a handsome 23,000 Rwf profit ($45). “I felt so happy; I had never earned so much money before,” she explains. “I bought clothing and food that I previously couldn’t afford,” she remembers. She also bought seedlings to plant sweet potatoes for her mother and herself in their small garden.

Marcelline learned that crop rotation was essential to successful ISFM results. The following season she planted Irish potatoes using ISFM and her harvest was 1,361 kilograms on the same 10 ares. She again marveled as she had never attained such yields before in her life.

Over several seasons since beginning to practice ISFM, Marcelline’s life has improved because she did two important things to raise her income. First she left subsistence farming behind by increasing her production. Secondly, through her membership in a farmers’ organization she was able to find a more profitable market for her abundant harvests. This collaboration gave Marcelline and her fellow members much greater bargaining power than if they had searched for buyers individually.

ISFM has helped Marcelline and many of her fellow farmers in the Gicumbi district to earn more from their agricultural efforts and to live a better life.

CATALIST/SEW This brochure is a publication of the IFDC-implemented CATALIST Project. | www.ifdc-catalist.org | ifdcrwanda@ifdc.org Funding is generously provided by the Netherlands Directorate-General for Development Cooperation (DGIS).

PROJECT HEADQUARTERS

BURUNDI OFFICE

CONGO DRC OFFICE

HELPAGE CRGL

IFDC Rwanda 730, Kimihurura II – Gasabo District P. O. Box 6758, Kigali Office: +250 255 10 42 11

IFDC Burundi 3 - Bweru Street Rohero II P. O. Box 1995, Bujumbura Telephone: +257 22 25 78 75 +257 22 27 35 66

IFDC Congo Q. Himbi, Goma Telephone: +243 813 134 697

Helpage Regional Headquarters B.P. 6682 - Ville de Kigali Rwanda Telephone: +250 (0)25 25 34 87 +250 (0)25 25 34 88