Over the last few weeks, business is picking up for Rwandans in the Horticulture sector. The country recorded a total of 305.6 tons of fresh produce. The largest exports include fresh produce such as fruits, vegetables and flowers.
Rwanda’s horticulture sector has been steadily growing as evidenced by previous statistics. Rwanda’s fresh products are branded under the “RWANDAFRESH Brand” and processed products are certified for the current world quality industrial standards.
The National Agricultural Export Development Board (NAEB) statistical report (2018-2019) on performance of agri-exports sector, a total volume of 37,343 tons of horticultural produce were exported from Rwanda during the 2018-2019 fiscal year as compared to 30,097 tons of horticultural produce exported during the 2017-2018 fiscal year.
Growth in horticultural export volumes from Rwanda was at 24%, which transformed to 16% increase in export revenues at US$ 27,174,785 in 2018-2019 compared to US$ 23,439,874 earned from horticultural exports during 2017-2018 financial year.
According to taarifa.rw, horticultural export revenues (US$ 27,174,785) earned from vegetables, fruits and flowers during the 2018-2019 fiscal year represented a significant 5% of the total of US$ 465,405,334 earnings from agricultural exports. Vegetables contributed a significant (57.5%) of horticulture export products, followed by fruits (30.9 %) and then flowers (11.6 %).
Main vegetable exports
The main vegetable products exported from Rwanda were cabbage, fresh tomato and tomato paste, onions, French beans, green pepper and chili pepper. The Democratic Republic of Congo was a leading destination where 72% of vegetables were exported, followed by Uganda (20%), Great Britain (3%) and France (3%) respectively. Other export destinations of Rwandan vegetables included Burundi and China among others.