SUNRIPE farm generates at least USD100,000 every year from vegetable production from an eight hectare farm situated on the hilly side opposite Ingwiti marshland in Nyiramatuntu village, Kayumba cell, Nyamata sector in Bugesera district.

Their total income transforms to about FRW91 million a year and FRW251,000 per day. About 60% of the farm’s produce is sold to two fresh produce companies of Proxi-Fresh (French beans) and CRINNOD Ltd (Chili) who export to European market.

The remaining produce from the farm is sold to high-end hotels and supermarkets in Bugesera and Kigali City. Their production was part of the 37,343 Metric Tons worth USD 27,174,785 earned as revenues from horticultural exports, which represents 5% of the total of USD 465,405,334 earnings from all agricultural exports from Rwanda during 2018-2019 fiscal year. Vegetable exports contributed significantly (57.5%) to the country’s horticultural export revenues followed by fruits (30.9 %) and then flowers (11.6 %).

SUNRIPE is a brain child of Mr. Randy Long, the American investor from California who came to Rwanda in 2015 with target to venture in Agribusiness. The investor was motivated to invest USD200,000 to buy his first six (6) hectares of land and develop a modern irrigation system for fruits and vegetable production. He later bought two (2) more hectares of land to expand his agri-business venture.

SUNRIPE was linked to local administrators of Bugesera District in Eastern province by the Rwandan Development Board to facilitate land acquisition. In regard to other support services for the company, Mr. William Macharia, the General Manager of SUNRIPE said that ‘‘Our Company has benefited from the government incentive programs provided by MINAGRI and NAEB. We also receive support from NGO’s like Women for Women International and SAGE foundation who supports local people to gain skills in good agricultural practice trainings necessary to develop household kitchen gardens and small scale horticultural enterprises.’’ 

The development on the farm has been made possible by first targeting local people, especially women for employment on the farm and development of their capacities in good agricultural practices. Farm planning in form of Identification of crops to produce and adoption of crop rotation and mixed farming routine ensures that soil nutrients are sustained, pests and diseases are managed and harvesting is done every day.

‘‘On this farm, we always ensure that every day is a harvest day.  If we are not harvesting chili, we are harvesting cabbages, if not cabbages, it is maize, and if not, we are selling eggs. There is no single day that we cannot have anything to sell out. We also gain in terms of not spending much on simple things we could handle ourselves like developing our own energy saving cold chain facilities from charcoal’’, said Mr. Macharia.

Major crops cultivated on the farm include chili, French beans, sweet pepper and cabbages. Three dairy animals and 1,700 chicken layers are also reared on the farm to supplement income and provide farm manure through compositing. On weekly basis, 400 kilograms of chili are harvested. One kilogram is sold between 500 to 700 Rwandan francs.

At the moment, SUNRIPE has laid a good foundation to export their own vegetables in competitive markets. ‘‘At the moment, one of our staff is on practical training course offered by NAEB on food safety handling procedures and pack house management in preparation for our export marketing programme. We thank NAEB for this support’’, said Mr. Macharia.

It is anticipated that Rwanda will generate an annual export revenue of USD 130 million from horticulture sector by 2024.