Rikolto in East Africa

Rikolto's Rice Cluster members met in May for a week of field-visiting, cluster meeting and learning exchange in Uganda. During the six-day sprint, rice sector experts from Senegal, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Indonesia and Vietnam managed to complete a 2-day meeting to share insights, evaluate progress and explore strategic approaches to move forward within the rice programme.

Are we romanticizing the economic potential of smallholder farmers? Does working on the inclusion of smallholder farmers in food chains increase the dominance of big business? These were the guiding questions in an exchange between Belgian funded NGOs, together with farmer organisations, researchers, national commodity associations and local governmental agencies in Arusha area, northern Tanzania.