Jackie Robinson Scholarship to Save the Agricultural Industry in Rwanda

I am applying for this Jackie Robinson scholarship as an opportunity to get a higher education because I want to pursue my career in agriculture to contribute in maximizing farming productivity in Rwanda. In my country over 81% of Rwandan survive on farming. Almost all agriculture practices in Rwanda are traditional, which make it less productive and does not satisfy market needs. I expect to learn modern agriculture to enhance quality and quantity. The agricultural practices is climate dependent, so I want to gain high education to reverse this trend.

With this Jackie Robinson scholarship, I will gain ability to enhance technology in farming such irrigation techniques, drainage to take away barriers of rain dependent. In Rwanda, we have many lakes, river, running water and heavy raining season but we still have famine due to drought interrupting agriculture. We still have limited access to quality agricultural inputs such as poor seeds and low quality fertilizers. Lack of marketing data and information with inadequate storage and high post-harvest losses make the work worse for farmers. Inappropriate production and post-harvest technologies lower value of agricultural products. Almost all exported products are primary, so we need more industries to process our primary products which we can consume or export as finished product. Plus we suffer with inadequate diseases, natural disaster management tools are poor, we have limited proactive measures to prevent outbreaks that result in the destruction of entire seasonal productions. We need more researchers who can predict and change the vision of our agriculture industry.

The root cause of all challenges faced by agriculture in Rwanda are lack of data and inefficient connectivity between farmers and stakeholders. My prompt intervention is learn more on agriculture, introduce research based farming and create platform that connect farmers, government, industries and private sectors. 

Our country still have a problem of little agricultural production. I think by taking care of agriculture this will also help in modernisation of food conservation method because there will be alot of crops so that we can reduce number of food products that we import from forein cauntries And I wish to obtain this Jackie Robinson scholarship so that I will get enough knowledge and skills on agricultural activities and after completing this course I will play an important role in promoting agriculture in Rwanda. I am also interested in this scholarship in order to add knowledge and skills to what I have acquired from high school when I was studying computer science and management. As Rwanda is being one of the most populated countries the destruction of the environment is huge. This scholarship will also help me to get direct to my career in ways of taking care of air we breath and I can suppose my career in agriculture so that I can train farmers mainly in rural to cultivate crops which handle most of deficient deseases that are still located in some part of Rwanda. Also I can make a contribution to agriculture proffesional job.

I hope that with the help of this Jackie Robinson scholarhip I will be able to pursue my academic and career goals which will benefit my country in the future as well as will be helpful in the development of agricultural industry in Rwanda.