An evaluation of the effectiveness of agriculture subsidies in the improvement of food security in Rwanda. Study: Nyabihu district

Abstract

The food insecurity is the most powerful source of many different problems and conflict in the greater part of the world and Africa especially the sub-Saharan region is where these problems are based nowadays. Also, in Rwanda the traces of food insecurity are remarkable like there is a number of people who are still under poverty conditions, there are still malnutrition cases, stunted growth in children and the like. The Rwandan government is constantly striving to find programs and strategies to deal with and mitigate all of these problems, and the most important program is to upgrade Rwandan agricultural production through various strategies, one of which is the provision of agriculture subsidies to people. This is due to the fact that agriculture employs more than 70% of Rwanda's population. And it is at this point that this research (an evaluation of the effectiveness of agricultural subsidies in improving food security in Rwanda) was carried out in Nyabihu District, one of Rwanda's agricultural regions. This research was carried out in Nyabihu district one of seven district of western province, using a questionnaire and interview, the sample was composed of 100 respondents that are beneficiaries of agricultural subsidies in the said district. The data analysis was done using excel spread sheet and SPSS version 23. The findings revealed that in Nyabihu District, people use subsidies at various levels based on demographic socioeconomic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, employment status, education level, and household size) as well as their attitudes toward the provision and use of subsidies. In the findings of this research, the people involved in the use of subsidies 63% were males, 90% were above 30 years, 88% were married, 53% had primary level, 85% were farmers and 69% had above 3 family members. But surprisingly by using the Chi square analysis only marital status, employment status and the kind of used subsidies showed a statistical relation to the improvement of food security. Not only from this aspect but also people involved in using subsidies in Nyabihu District strongly agree with the programs, distribution policy of subsidies in the line of improvement their food security and also they are being aware of other factors affecting their agriculture production later on their food security. This research after using logistic regression showed that marital status, employment status, and the attitudes upon the subsidies presented a positive statistical influence to the improvement of agriculture production and the improvement of food security in Nyabihu District which can be inferred the whole country, Rwanda.