Last November, The New Times reported a staggeringly high - 40% - increase in food prices in Kigali and other urban areas. A year before that, the very same newspaper reported a similar increase in the prices as well.
Now, I don't know about you, but it feels to me that the phrase, "food is expensive at the market these days," is becoming part and parcel of 'Kigali Life' lexicon. As an urbanite, I previously took it for granted that Kigali Life was synonymous with high costs of living. And to be honest, I didn't try to understand why that was so, other than attempting to link the skyrocketing prices to the ever-increasing fuel prices. That is until I started farming myself.
By farming in Ngoma District I have been able to have a better understanding of the rural food economy, and what I have found out angers me to no end.
This is a very real scenario that I've witnessed personally. A farmer in Rukumberi plants half a hectare of local pumpkin, investing about Rwf 200,000 over a time period of three to four months. At harvest time, he or she sells a good-sized pumpkin at around Rwf 100-400 to a Kigali-based middleman with a Fuso truck and access to cold, hard cash. The farmer, if lucky, earns maybe Rwf 400,000 for their entire season's work. So, logically, you'd think they've made a small profit so, no harm, no foul. Right? You'll be wrong to assume everything is okay because, after paying any debt they've incurred over the last few months as well as living expenses and inputs for the next growing season, they barely have enough to buy a bottle of Primus beer.
So, the middleman goes from village centre to village centre, packing hundreds of pumpkins until the truck is full (or he or she runs out of money), and then heads straight to Nyabugogo market. At Nyabugogo, the middleman then sells each pumpkin for between Rwf 1,000 - 1,500, thereby earning between Rwf 1-3 million. And then the final customer? Complaining that prices are astronomical, they buy the Rukumberi pumpkin at about Rwf 1,800.
So, think about that. People in Kigali are often paying over three times what the farmer - who is the backbone of the fight against hunger, and poverty - has sold the produce for. But farmers themselves remain poverty-stricken.
As I see it, this is the situation today. Urbanites are spending the vast majority of their hard-earned cash on food (therefore leaving them little to save or invest) and farmers are left living hand to mouth, always one bad season away from requesting food aid from the government. The only people who are making money and laughing all the way to the bank are the middlemen. That cannot, and should not be, the case.
Firstly, our national food supply shouldn't be governed by the whims of the Fuso truck-driving middlemen. They are, in my view, literally dictating the prices both at the farm as well as at the local market. And as businessmen, or women, they are attempting to get as much return on investment as possible. Never mind the effect on everyone else's livelihoods.
As a nascent farmer myself, I realised that the only way to financially survive (never mind thrive) as a rural farmer was to purchase my own means of transport and drive my own produce to Nyabugogo. Thereby cutting out the middlemen.
In addition, because of my frequent travels to rural Eastern Province, I'm able to purchase groceries at prices that Kigali shoppers can only dream of. I mean, with about Rwf 25,000 I'm able to purchase enough fruits and vegetables - ranging from pineapples to green bananas - at the bi-weekly local market to last my household of five over a week. It's still a tad bit high of course, but I pay triple that if I buy the same goods in Kigali. Plus, the money goes straight to farmers.
It's my belief that the lower food prices in rural Rwanda should be fairly mirrored in urban areas. There is no reason why food sourced less than 200 kilometres away ends up triple the price because of 'logistics'. Double the farm gate price? Maybe. Triple? Absolutely not! Fuel is not that expensive. Nor are the vehicles, or the taxes, on the produce.
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Leaving our food prices to the vagaries of demand and supply isn't very clever, especially because of the inefficiencies in our local logistical ecosystem. I mean, just a few years ago, farmers in Rubavu let their onions rot in the field rather than sell them at a loss. Yet, I'm pretty sure that there were regions in the country that could have used those onions. But because of the inefficiencies, farmers in Rubavu suffered and so did onion consumers in Kirehe.
RURA has been able to keep prices of public transport and fuel stable and the City of Kigali has been able to provide a semblance of organisation to the bus sector (how successfully is a topic for another day). How is it possible that the transport of food (and therefore farm gate and market prices) have been left to whoever has a truck and some cash on hand? In my opinion, this is a national security concern that should be tackled with urgency by the government. If not, then we shall stay in the situation where we all remain poorer than we need to.
The writer is a socio-political commentator
