WFP Buys Over 3,000 Metric Tonnes of Food From Farmers

Kigali — The United Nations WFP announced on Tuesday that it had purchased food worth Rwf352.8 million (US$600,000) through its Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative which has benefitted hundreds of families in the country.

P4P programme was launched in 2008 by President Paul Kagame with an aim of empowering small scale farmers from developing countries, through buying foodstuffs from them to supply areas where WFP has operations.

A total of 3,300 metric tonnes of maize grain and beans was bought in the Eastern and Southern provinces from 37 cooperatives and two farmers' unions, bringing together more than 14,000 small scale farmers.

Bernadette Furaha, a mother of four, started cultivating a small plot of land in Kirehe District, Eastern Province, after her husband was killed in the1994 Genocide against the Tutsis.

She said that through P4P, she was trained by WFP on post-harvest management and managed to sell her maize to WFP.

"My life has changed drastically," said Furaha, who used the proceeds to build an iron-roofed house worth Rwf200,000, bought a cow and paid her children's school fees.

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