In Nyabihu District, the transition from subsistence living to small-scale entrepreneurship is being realized through the PRISM project. By focusing on small livestock distribution and cooperative building, the initiative has enabled formerly vulnerable households to move beyond casual farm labor and into the regional supply chain.
For Louise Hagenimana, a 54-year-old resident of the area, the intervention marked a departure from extreme food insecurity. Before joining the project in 2021, she relied on manual labor in neighbors’ fields to feed her children. “I was so poor that I only got food after working in other people’s fields. I was below the poverty line,” Hagenimana explains. After being ranked by her community as a priority beneficiary, she received 10 laying hens, feed, and construction materials for a coop.
Hagenimana’s trajectory demonstrates the project’s internal growth model. By selling roosters and reinvesting the proceeds, she expanded her flock and eventually diversified into pig farming. This diversification provided a critical agricultural input: manure. “The pigs gave me manure, and on about half a hectare, I used to harvest around 400 kilograms of beans. Now I harvest about 1.5 tons because the soil is well fertilized,” she notes, adding that the availability of eggs has also eliminated malnutrition within her household.
The impact extends to collective commercial activities through the “Abihuje” group in Rambura Sector’s Guriro Cell. Mukankusi Brigitte, an agricultural extension facilitator, highlights that the group has grown from 25 to 50 members through the “pass-on-the-gift” system.
As egg production increased, the group scaled its operations to handle 3,000 eggs daily, up from an initial 1,000. To solve the challenge of sourcing poultry diet, the cooperative launched an animal feed shop. “They started by stocking just one sack; today, they can stock 20,” Mukankusi observes, noting that the shop now serves both members and the general public.
According to Project Manager Joseph Nshokeyinka, the Project Development Objective of PRISM is to enhance the resilience of rural men, women, and youth within the Rwanda livestock sub-sector.
The scale of the project is reflected in the distribution data: while 67,500 chickens and 3,077 pigs were initially purchased for rural households, the “pass-on-the-gift” mechanism has further distributed 149,890 chickens to 14,805 households and 6,265 pigs to 3,133 households.
Implemented by the Rwanda Agriculture and Animal Resources Development Board (RAB) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), the PRISM project is a joint effort between the Government of Rwanda and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) to transform rural livelihoods through sustainable livestock markets.
