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The rhythmic sounds of construction muffle the thud of farmers’ hoes on a chilly morning in Rwanda’s capital, where new efforts aim to protect remaining agricultural land from relentless development in Africa’s most densely populated country.
Eighty-four-year-old Mukarusini Kurisikira had been a farmer before she fled the country to Congo in 1994. Upon returning, she said, her family’s land, which had stretched across the hills, had been taken away for construction. She gestured toward Kigali’s high-rise buildings.
Now she grows maize and sweet potatoes on a piece of land the size of a small cottage, which she said is barely enough to feed her. “It is all I have,” she said, looking warily at construction equipment on a ridge nearby.
Now she has a measure of protection. Since September, Rwanda’s government has been mapping agricultural land and using satellite imagery to track any development encroaching on farmlands and forests in a country where the population is expected to reach 22 million in a couple of years.
Rwanda is striving to ensure food security amid the latest global pressures on farm inputs like fertilizer, whose prices have been rising since the Iran war began. The government has imposed fines of up to $3,000 and jail terms of up to six months on developers found to be encroaching.
Some buildings in Kigali have been torn down, though people associated with them didn’t want to comment for fear of government retaliation. The government now plans to incorporate drones for better real-time monitoring.
Meanwhile, land use data from the mayor’s office shows that the Kigali master plan has dedicated nearly a quarter of land—22%—to agriculture. City authorities acknowledge that housing construction is attractive due to demand, but say future projections show that “farming will be even more productive.”
They say the demand for food is also rising and believe that, with innovation, it can be grown on smaller pieces of land.
The government last year printed and displayed maps showing areas in districts across Rwanda that are designated for construction and reserved for agriculture.
This article was provided by The Associated Press.