You have a good trip ? How long have you been gone?

I left from November 1st to 17th. I was accompanied by Nicola Malacarne, “Monitoring-Evaluation-Learning” manager at Interaction. FH Suisse is a member of this umbrella organization in Switzerland.

Which countries and projects have you visited?

I went to visit our FH colleagues in Rwanda and Uganda to talk about the progress of the projects. We were also able to visit the farmers concerned in different regions.

What changes have you observed?

An example from Rwanda: Positive changes are visible in the situation of farmers. Their lives are improving, thanks to the implementation of agroecology, which gradually restores soil fertility. In eastern Rwanda, we have started work supporting peasant cooperatives since 2016 and the results are visible in terms of improving crops and therefore harvests and income and ultimately the situation of families. From 2021, we are also starting to do this in the West in a region where farmers cultivate on exhausted soils which need restoration.

What challenges remain to be overcome?

Improvements could be faster if it were not for climate change. They cause irregularity in the distribution of rain and sometimes periods without rain prevent any harvest. Some farmers visited in Uganda sowed maize, weeded it, but in the end harvested nothing, because it dried before ripening. They will have to sell livestock to survive. Agroecology should allow them to strengthen the resilience of their crops and therefore of the entire farm.

A memory to tell us?

We went to the mountains in Rwanda to visit farmers involved in a new program in the West and the car broke down on the road. We therefore completed the path on foot and finally arrived in the fields with the farmers concerned. Arriving on foot, surrounded by children, creates another dynamic and allowed us to have particularly rich and deep exchanges with the different actors of the project that day.

Thank you for answering our questions and for the photos too!