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With research staff from more than 60 countries, and offices across the globe, IFPRI provides research-based policy solutions to sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition in developing countries.

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researcher spotlight

Samuel Benin

Samuel Benin is the Acting Director for Africa in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit. He conducts research on national strategies and public investment for accelerating food systems transformation in Africa and provides analytical support to the African Union’s CAADP Biennial Review.

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IFPRI currently has more than 600 employees working in over 80 countries with a wide range of local, national, and international partners.

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experts

Development Strategies and Governance

Serge Mugabo

Senior Research Associate

Bio

Serge Mugabo is a Senior Research Associate in the Development Strategies and Governance Unit, based in Kigali, where he provides analytical support to the IFPRI Rwanda Strategy Support Program (RSSP). He contributes to research on prioritizing agricultural transformation, increasing agricultural productivity, improving nutrition, and strengthening food systems and the rural non-farm economy as well as fostering broad-based economic growth and development in Rwanda. Before joining the IFPRI Rwanda team, Serge worked for the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR) as an Economic Studies and Research Statistician mainly focusing on poverty analysis. Serge holds a master’s degree in Mathematical Sciences from the African Institute of Mathematical Science (AIMS) in Senegal and a bachelor’s degree in Engineering in Statistics Applied to Economy from INES–Ruhengeri, in Rwanda.

Publications

Publications

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Working Paper

Costs and returns in Rwandan smallholder agricultural production: Gross margins and profitability analyses

2024Mugabo, Serge; Warner, James
Details

Costs and returns in Rwandan smallholder agricultural production: Gross margins and profitability analyses

This paper explores crop commercialization among smallholder agricultural households in Rwanda from a cost and revenue perspective to determine profitability at the farm level. We use standard revenue and cost equations to assess the commercial viability of the smallholders. In general, we find that a household’s total crop production creates positive returns even if implicit costs, such as own family labor and fertilizer subsidies, are included. Specifically, over 80 percent of our sample households generated positive economic returns from farming— referred to as demonstrating a positive gross economic margin (GEM). However, if only crop market sales and market input costs are used in the calculations, only 40 percent of agricultural households generated positive returns—referred to as demonstrating a positive gross marketing margin (GMM). Most of the explanation for this difference is that the typical farm household sells only about one-third of its crop production by value. This outcome suggests that many agricultural households continue to focus on cultivating food crops for their own consumption and do not specialize in commercial production. This is to be expected in an economic context where input, credit, and commodity markets are still developing, production decisions are still shaped by high levels of weather and market risk, and production risk management options are limited, among many other factors. The results of this research provide a better understanding of how Rwandan smallholders might move towards higher value production, with the ultimate goal being to increase household revenues and welfare and accelerate the country’s economic transformation.

Year published

2024

Authors

Mugabo, Serge; Warner, James

Citation

Mugabo, Serge; and Warner, James. 2024. Costs and returns in Rwandan smallholder agricultural production: Gross margins and profitability analyses. Rwanda Strategy Support Program Working Paper 14. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/148697

Country/Region

Rwanda

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Crops; Commercialization; Smallholders; Agriculture; Profitability

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets

Record type

Working Paper

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Working Paper

Rural income diversification in Rwanda: Opportunities and challenges

2024Schmidt, Emily; Mugabo, Serge; Rosenbach, Gracie
Details

Rural income diversification in Rwanda: Opportunities and challenges

The Government of Rwanda continues to work to accelerate structural transformation to expand and diversify the country’s economy. High rural population density and small agricultural landholdings are driving workers from agricultural households to seek employment outside of farming. Using representative data on agricultural production and employment for rural households in Rwanda from 2022, this research evaluates the opportunities rural households have to diversify their labor portfolios. We find that, rather than nonfarm household enterprises developing to meet greater rural service and goods demand, agriculture wage labor is the dominant source of off-own-farm employment. However, such informal agricultural wage labor is seen as low-productivity work and is among the lowest paid. Among nonfarm employment options, nonfarm businesses generate less income than nonagricultural wage labor, likely reflecting high barriers to entrepreneurship and low demand for off-farm services in rural areas. In contrast to employment profiles from other low-income countries, we find that the probability of a worker from an agricultural household in Rwanda engaging in rural, off-farm wage labor decreases as household welfare increases. Agricultural households that have workers seeking to hire out their labor tend to have the smallest landholdings, while households that hire in labor have the largest landholdings. Additionally, households with a higher share of members who completed primary education are less likely to hire out their labor, especially for agriculture wage work. These results suggest that programs that offer support services to agricultural households, such as financial services and affordable and relevant education, may be important in incentivizing these households to engage in entrepreneurship and form their own businesses or to seek wage employment in more remunerative sectors than agriculture.

Year published

2024

Authors

Schmidt, Emily; Mugabo, Serge; Rosenbach, Gracie

Citation

Schmidt, Emily; Mugabo, Serge; and Rosenbach, Gracie. 2004. Rural income diversification in Rwanda: Opportunities and challenges. Rwanda SSP Working Paper 13. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute.

Country/Region

Rwanda

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Agricultural Production; Economic Aspects; Employment; Welfare; Education; Land Ownership

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Policies, Institutions, and Markets

Record type

Working Paper

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Brief

Synopsis: Crop commercialization in Rwanda: Current market participation and drivers

2024Warner, James; Benimana, Gilberthe; Mugabo, Serge; Ingabire, Chantal
Details

Synopsis: Crop commercialization in Rwanda: Current market participation and drivers

As Rwanda emerges from the effects of COVID-19 and global price shocks caused by the Russia/Ukrainian conflict, there is an opportunity to focus on agricultural fundamentals to drive its economic transformation. One aspect of the transformation is how farm households are engaging in crop commercialization. This policy note outlines basic findings and suggested recommendations derived from a 2022 Rwandan commercialization household survey. Our basic unit of analysis is total crop sold divided by total value produced, averaged at either the household or individual crop level. Key findings include:  Approximately 20% of our sampled smallholder households do not sell any crops. However, contrary to a subsistence/commercial farm dichotomy, most households sell on a broad continuum ranging from 1 – 100% with an average of 33% of their total crop production marketed.  Crop value per hectare increases with greater marketed sales, indicating that farmers switch from lower value food crops (e.g. beans, cassava, maize) to cash crops such as fruits and vegetables where they market higher percentages.  Crop value per hectare is not correlated with land size, revealing that crop choices drive value and not increasing land-related economies of scale. This finding underscores the pivotal role of crop selection in determining agricultural productivity and economic returns, rather than mere expansion of land holdings.  Irrigation, land size, hiring labor and input purchases increase market participation as well as percentage of sales. Conversely, a larger family size has a negative effect on both.

Year published

2024

Authors

Warner, James; Benimana, Gilberthe; Mugabo, Serge; Ingabire, Chantal

Citation

Warner, James; Benimana, Gilberthe; Mugabo, Serge; and Ingabire, Chantal. 2024. Synopsis: Crop commercialization in Rwanda: Current market participation and drivers. Rwanda SSP Policy Note 11. Washington, DC: International Food Policy Research Institute. https://hdl.handle.net/10568/141779

Country/Region

Rwanda

Keywords

Africa; Eastern Africa; Sub-saharan Africa; Agriculture; Commercialization; Food Crops; Markets; Cash Crops; Food Security; Income; Surpluses

Language

English

Access/Licence

Open AccessCC-BY-4.0

Source

Source record

Project

Fruit and Vegetables for Sustainable Healthy Diets

Record type

Brief