Rabobank Group

Agriculture is the most important sector in Rwanda, as in many African countries. Almost 80% of Rwanda’s population depends on agriculture as their main source of income. Professionalisation of the sector is vital t achieve higher levels of agricultural production.

The agricultural sector in Rwanda is organised mainly through co-operatives and associations. Farmers’ co-operatives (AMCOs  –) play an important role in the creation of more effective supply chains. But there still a long way to go before rural areas gain proper access to financial services. The fact that most co-operatives are not organised professionally means that they have difficulties in attracting the loans that they need to invest in storage capacity, mechanisation and other  investments wto help farmers to earn more money by improving yields and reducing post-harvest losses. Which is why sustainable financing of agriculture by BPR, a Rabo partner bank,  should be carried out in tandem with a capacity building programme designed to make the co-operatives more bankable.

BPR, a Rabo partner bank, is the people’s bank  and is the only bank in Rwanda that has a real network in the rural areas. BPR’s vision on financing agriculture and the agribusiness reflect Rabobank’s historic role as principal banker for farmers’ co-operatives (co-ops) in the Netherlands. Rabobank enabled the co-ops to become a stable factor in income generation for farmers in the different agricultural sub-sectors. There is a natural relationship between Rabobank and the agricultural co-operatives because both have similar co-operative roots.

Capacity building in rice sector
BPR has the ambition to play a leading role in agricultural development in Rwanda much like Rabobank did in the Netherlands. Given that the average level of financial literacy and governance of co-operative leaders is modest., this can, only be accomplished through an active capacity building programme designed to improve the sustainability of the AMCOs.

Rabo Development and BPR have identified rice as a target sector for launching an improvement programme. The rice sector is a relatively well-organised and integrated sector in which co-operatives play an important role. Rice is important for Rwanda because the country is a net importer of rice and  because the sector employs a large proportion of the rural population .
The capacity building programme aims to help the co-operative leaders to organise their co-ops in a professional manner. IN turn this helps them to generate and maintain the support of the ordinary members with respect to co-operative policies and practices. Topics covered are:

• capitalisation
• delivery duty
• farm and product quality management
• traceability and certification of products
• upscaling business and logistics
• recruiting and training professional management

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