Lensational, in conversation with Charles Mugabo, Rwandan climate-change expert & UNDP consultant
Featured image by Vestine Muhawenimana. Produced as part of Lensational and NAP GN’s Envisioning Resilience Initiative, Rwanda Chapter.
‘Rwanda is a country of a thousand hills. It is challenging for farmers’
Explains Charles Mugabo, climate-change expert and consultant based in Rwanda, who recently worked with the Rwanda Environment Management Authority and UNDP on climate proofing Rwanda’s rural settlements.
In 2023-2024, Envisioning Resilience – an initiative of the National Adaptation Global Network in partnership with Lensational, aiming to bring the voices of underrepresented women into adaptation planning – launched in Rwanda in partnership with Rwanda Women’s Network.
Over the course of several months, the initiative engaged seven women from seven districts in Rwanda, training them in participatory photography and storytelling to capture – through their own lenses – the impacts of climate change on their communities. Among the stories emerging from the initiative were unique stories of women small-scale farmers who rely on subsistence farming, and are now responding to the climate challenges affecting their livelihoods.
One such woman is Martha Mukarwego, subsistence farmer residing in Nyamagabe, South West Rwanda, a region of rolling hills and lush landscape.
A mother of seven and a wife, Martha together with her husband have long relied on growing their own food – primarily sweet potatoes and cassava – to feed their family. The surplus they sold would allow them to meet other household needs. Today Martha is among the many Rwandan subsistence farmers whose livelihoods and household food sufficiency are threatened by erratic weather patterns. Vestine Muhawenimana, one of the photographers who emerged during this phase of Envisioning Resilience brings Martha’s story to life in a photographic series shot at her home in Nyamagabe.
In Martha’s region of Nyamagabe, rainfall patterns have become more erratic and temperatures have risen quickly, affecting crops and quite literally threatening livelihoods. As Vestine shares, Martha’s family have not been able to grow enough food to feed everyone, and they have resorted to alternative ways of sustaining their household.
‘The women whose stories this programme captures represent many Rwandan families who are coping with climate change today. Climate is changing rapidly across Rwanda. Intensified floods and landslides are impacting Northern and Western parts of the country, while long lasting drought and water stress are seen across Southern and Eastern parts. This has been too much for the ecosystem. It has affected the growth of crops‘ explains Mugabo
Subsistence farmers like Martha make up a significant share of Rwanda’s agricultural sector and economy. Today, as climate change intensifies across the country, subsistence is less attainable for these rural farmers, who see their crops surrender to rain and pests. This comes at a cost, both for the farmers’ families, but also for the economy as a whole. In the case of Martha, two of her children have had to drop out of school to find jobs in the capital, Kigali, in order to support the family with regular income.
The Rwandan government has been active in responding to climate change, including through monitoring its impacts, and through local initiatives aiming to educate local farmers on climate-smart agriculture. Martha is shown using one of them in Vestine’s story – a local tree nursery near her home, where she can learn about climate-smart crops, and collect seedlings for planting. While these initiatives are proving vital to farmers like Martha, Charles Mugabo believes they will need to be rolled out more widely:
‘Technology needs assessment has been happening across the country to tackle climate change adaptation. The focus has been agriculture, and we now have a long list of technologies that we know are suitable for Rwanda’s needs - one of them being the roll out of climate pest resistant varieties. Rwanda has been promoting these in national programmes. But to my knowledge they haven’t reached all beneficiaries in need yet. There is also a programme that promotes climate smart technologies, but the outreach remains limited.’
One certainly promising insight emerging as we read through Muhawenimana’s story is how farmers like Martha are turning to growing coffee as an alternative source of livelihood. Martha started planting coffee about two years ago after hearing about it from friends and fellow farmers, who had success in growing it. Her goal is to sell her coffee harvest for cash, and in turn, purchase the food she is no longer able to grow for her family with the income generated. Martha started with just a few coffee saplings and now has about two hundred trees of coffee, which she sells for income. Although coffee can also be vulnerable to climate change, Mugabo explains how growing it in Martha’s region holds promise, not just as a revenue source, but also as an adaptation strategy:
'This is a region where topography is not friendly for most of the food crops – it is characterised by slopes and erosion. Coffee is agroforestry, and you would typically plant it to protect your soil from erosion. As such, in this region of Rwanda, coffee would bring about more benefits than short term growth crops. It is also more resistant to diseases compared to most of the food crops that grow in the area, like cassava and irish potatoes.'
The challenge ahead for small farmers like Martha is to find a market, explains Mugabo.
‘Coffee could definitely be promising for farmers in the region. The country now produces high quality coffee, which gets sold at a good price on the international market. If you have a very small plot and you need to eat, it will be difficult initially to think about growing coffee as you have no food. But farmers can sell cash crops like coffee, and buy food on the market rather than growing their own food. The challenge will be the alternative food source before the new coffee plantation starts bearing its fruits.’
Coffee production in Rwanda has grown steadily since the 1990s, and the country is now estimated to account for 1% of the world’s coffee export – the 9th biggest producer in Africa, out of 21 countries. In 2023-24, an estimated 400,000 small scale farmers in Rwanda relied on coffee production for income. This number could rise as farmers like Martha transition towards growing cash crops in the face of climate change. Continued sector growth and targeted support, which considers the needs of farmers like Martha can yield positive results in future years.