REQUEST FOR CONCEPT NOTES (RFCN)

IMPLEMENTATION OF TERA IMBUTO NZIZA “PLANT GOOD SEEDS” ACTIVITY, PHASE 2

1. SYNOPSIS OF THE REQUEST FOR CONCEPT NOTE (RCFN)

2. BACKGROUND

2.1 AGRA

Established in 2006, AGRA is an African-led and Africa-based institution that puts smallholder farmers at the center of the continent’s growing economy by transforming agriculture from a solitary struggle to survive into farming as a business that thrives. Together with our partners, we are working to sustainably grow Africa’s food systems. In Rwanda, AGRA is focusing on supporting SMEs that are small, informal, and underfinanced, with a special focus on youth and women led SMEs during the current strategy period with interventions that cut through four business lines and three cross-cutting areas. AGRA selected four complementary and integrated business lines: the seed systems, sustainable farming, inclusive markets & trade (IMT), and policy& state capability (PSC). Besides the four business lines, AGRA and its partners selected three cross-cutting areas (a) inclusivity (enabling women and youth to contribute to agriculture for their economic empowerment) (b) climate change adaptation (equipping farmers and strengthening food systems to absorb and recover from shocks, and (c) nutrition (improving nutrition outcomes by diversifying crops and ensuring food availability).

The Rwanda AGRA Country Strategy 2023-2027 will focus among others, on enhancing crop productivity through adoption and utilization of modern climate resilient crop varieties, nutrient dense crops, climate smart agriculture techniques and good agronomic practices. Currently the adoption of improved seeds stands at 37.1% and this strategy thrives to contribute to the achievement of overarching goal of current Strategic plan for Agriculture transformation (PSTA5) and National Strategic for transformation (NST2) of revolutionizing agriculture sector through increasing improved seed use at 75% leading to enhanced crop productivity. Hence, the strategy also will promote and catalyze the adoption of nutrient dense crops for improved nutrition of households. The AGRA strategy 2023-2027 will also promote gender inclusiveness and equity among women, men, and young farmers. The strategy will contribute to agriculture sector expansion which will enable the creation of working opportunities for young men and women in agriculture value chains.

AGRA is a champion of an inclusive agricultural transformation where youth and women are given the opportunity to play their commensurate role in driving food systems transformation. More information: https://agra.org/.

2.2 Tera Imbuto Nziza Activity, Phase 2

Background

Agriculture continues to play a pivotal role in Rwanda’s economy. The agricultural sector employs more than 64% of the population (2020 decreasing y-o-y), represents almost a quarter of the country’s GDP (27% in 2023) and 34% of exports.

Rwanda has made remarkable progress towards inclusive agriculture as it was the first country to sign the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP) compact and has shown continued political commitment towards the CAADP initiative and the Malabo declaration. In its strategic plan for a sustainable, food systems-led, inclusive agricultural transformation, the Government of Rwanda (GoR) considers crop intensification and promotion of high value commodities through adoption of improved technologies as its key strategy to:

• Increase crop yields per hectare that create income for small scale producers and generate export 
• Accelerate inclusive economic growth that creates work opportunities for youth and

Currently, the GoR, with support from development partners, is in the advanced stage of developing its fifth strategic plan for agricultural transformation (PSTA-5). Through this strategy, the Government recognizes that agri-food sector growth must be led by the private sector, with its role to become a market enabler as opposed to a market actor.

In recent years, good progress has been made in farmers’ adoption of technologies and practices like in the use of more resilient and nutritious quality seeds, aflatoxin control measures, improved productivity of diverse staple crops, promotion of horticultural commodities and the enhanced participation of private sector and youth in the sector. According to the National Statistics Institute of Rwanda (NISR), the adoption and use of modern agricultural inputs stands at 37.1% for improved seeds, 87.9% for inorganic fertilizers, 59.6% for organic fertilizers and 34.5% for pesticides (NISR, SAS 2023).

Sector expansion challenges

Despite the impressive performance of Rwanda’s agriculture sector in the last decade, significant challenges remain with respect to food security, nutrition, access to market, accessibility of seeds by smallholder farmers and limited participation of youth in the sector. About 38% of the Rwandan population live below poverty level, almost one-fifth of Rwandan population are food-insecure and 35% of Rwanda children under five years suffer from chronic malnutrition. Close to 89% of the rural households practice small-scale farming , 64% of smallholder farmers are yet to adopt seeds of improved crop varieties, and this contributes to current yield gaps. The yield gap for major crops is wide (72% for beans, and 61% for maize). The adoption of improved seeds is at an average of 37.1%. Mechanized agriculture remains low with only 27% of the total arable land being tilled using farm power (mainly tractors); only 5.27% of total lending by financing institutions goes towards agriculture; and the country is yet to secure international accreditations required to be able to trade its seeds beyond its borders. Climate change also poses significant risks to agriculture in Rwanda, both in terms of drought spells, floods, and landslides. Currently, land under cultivation is largely rain-fed (only 10% of potential irrigable land is equipped with adequate irrigation infrastructure), and therefore vulnerable to extreme weather and changes in rainfall patterns.

Despite favorable agroecological conditions, high-value horticultural crops in Rwanda still face fundamental constraints, including weak seed system, fragmented farming system, lack of targeted extension system for export- oriented products, inadequate post-harvest handling infrastructure and weak linkages to both domestic and export markets.

An evaluation of the USAID-funded and AGRA implemented Tera Imbuto Nziza project (TIN) showed the following development challenges still face the agriculture sector and specifically the seed system in Rwanda:

1. Lack of financial access for SMEs to scale up and commercialize for the markets.
2. The insufficient quantities and quality of seeds produced and available to farmers, that at times does not mirror the preferences of the farmers or the markets.
3. Insufficient and unsuitable varieties of potato and soybean seeds for processing and farmer demand.
4. Limited investment in tissue culture and greenhouse infrastructure necessary to increase the production of early generation seeds for potatoes.
5. Incomplete process for the national seed laboratory to get ISTA accreditation and accession to OECD seed inspection scheme.
6. Quality of seeds not complying to international standards
7. Inadequate trained private seed inspectors leading to unmet need for inspection and certification services for seed producers and consequently to lack of quality seeds for farmers.
8. Input subsidy policy and its sustainability has not been resolved and continues to be a burden for the Gov- ernment.
9. Small volumes of seed produced by SMEs leading to non-commercialization of the sector.
10. Challenges in regional seed trade and lack of sustainability.
11. Low levels of mechanization and value addition in the seed sector.
12. Inadequate adoption and practice of agronomic practices leading to huge losses and impacts on seed sec- tor due climate change.
13. Limited operational capacity of the regulator to enforce seed law and its guidelines.
14. Gaps in seed law creating loopholes in enforcement of quality assurance guidelines
15. Limited research capacity to release diverse and climate smart varieties

GoR and development partners recognize that more needs to be done to address the identified development challenges and achieve a sustainable food systems-led inclusive agricultural transformation. The biggest pain points in further realizing Vision 2050 include among other things a weak seed system that contributes to the crop productivity, agri-SMEs remain small and informal, weak commodity markets for agricultural inputs and outputs, limited opportunities for youth participation. Majority of agri-SMEs are disconnected and underfinanced which means they do not have the muscle to develop competitive and inclusive input and output markets that provide farmers what they need. These ecosystem challenges therefore limit expansion of the agri-food sector in Rwanda.

The execution of the TIN II recognizes other implementing partners in Agriculture sector, especially other USAID activities. The proposed activity Tera Imbuto Nziza II was developed to scale up the lessons learnt from TIN I and leverage and complement the interventions by other USAID activities (Hinga Wunguke, AID-IGLR, Kunguhara Wagura amasoko, and Hanga Akazi). The proposed TIN II also implements new activities that would fill the gaps left from the TIN I activity implementation in an effort to contribute to a resilient and functional systems, strengthening private sector-led agricultural services and enhance youth and women participation in the sector.

Activity Overview

AGRA in the second phase of Tera Imbuto Nziza aims to support food systems transformation through development of a more resilient and functional seed system and strengthening private sector-led agricultural services. The activity expands to cover new horticultural value chains such as avocado and chili. Overall, the program pursues the following inter-connected objectives and interventions:

Objective 1: Increase availability, utilization and diversity of quality seed and seedlings of target crops.

In 2023, AGRA conducted an in-depth analysis of existing seed system gaps through the SeedSAT analytics which has further informed critical and priority areas of intervention thus informing the development of Tera Imbuto Nziza II. Some of the highlighted challenges are related to inadequate volumes of early generation and commercial seed of diverse, nutrient dense, and climate smart varieties, issues related to seed quality and accreditation, farmer awareness and lack of planning and coordination, as well as low operation capacity of the SMEs.

Tera Imbuto Nziza II advances to close the gaps and respond to bottlenecks to foster the Rwanda seed industry growth. The emphasis here is the intention to preserve gains made on staple crops (maize, soybean, bean and irish potato) while supporting seed production for horticultural value chains (mainly avocado and chili) and increase variety diversity as demands arise from horticulture local farmers, processors and export markets, especially those supported by Feed the Future USAID funded activities in Rwanda such as Hinga Wunguke and Kungahara Wagura Amasoko.

Objective 2: Increase access to finance for seed and seedling businesses

The AGRA Rwanda Country Strategy recognizes that one of the biggest weak points in Rwanda is that seed and aggregation SMEs are small, informal, and underfinanced which means they neither have the muscles to push nor to pull the market for improved technologies. Only 20% of the farmers produce for a market which means there is a disconnect between end-markets and the seed sector (crop breeders and seed producers, nursery operators and industry). This was also identified during the SeedSAT survey. The disconnect means that seed companies and produce aggregators and exporters are not reaching farmers with the right information, on time, and with varieties that the end-markets want. This disconnect means that farmers are therefore not investing in improved seeds and seed companies are investing less in production of improved varieties. Furthermore, seed companies do not have adequate financial capital to grow their businesses.

Related to the above, the national research system has little incentive to invest in market-led breeding programs. For instance, seed system for horticulture crops is still largely informal, leading to inability of actors to access finance. Rwanda has 2,400 agricultural cooperatives with nearly 300,000 members venturing into different value chain agri-businesses. Most of these cooperatives are not making a profit as they lack market linkages and have limited or no access to finance. Their dependency on donor programs leads to inconsistent support which is not driven by a long-term sustainability perspective. In brief, the private sector is small, with limited expansion capacity and therefore unable to serve the farmers adequately to achieve the desired outcomes and impact.

The fact that most seed/seedlings local businesses and aggregation SMEs are small, informal, and underfinanced leads to low profitability and limits their ability to present an effective demand for support services such as finance and business development services. Financial service providers largely view the agriculture sector as too risky and costly, hence the low percentage of loans in the agricultural sector (5.2% in 2021). There is a need for more investment and thus a greater extension of commercial financial services such as credit, loan guarantee, insurance and savings to upgrade technology adoption, infrastructure, and agricultural practices.

Objective 3: Improve enabling environment for local seed industry growth

Tera Imbuto Nziza II leverages its role as a catalyst and convening force to support joint planning and coordination between Government and private sector players in the seed sector in order to create an enabling environment for inclusive agricultural innovation and youth employment in the country by facilitating Government reform and engagement with private sector and civil society.

Learning from previous experience in Tera Imbuto Nziza, AGRA wish to take a more integrated approach to tackling binding constraints in the seed sector, recognizing that strengthening policy and regulatory reforms must be matched by implementation capacity. To this end, AGRA wish to support interventions that deepen and broaden the capacity of Rwanda Government to drive evidence-based and inclusive policy reform and implementation. The activity will support a data system to generate evidence that shall help the Government make more informed policy decisions, and support regulations that create an enabling environment for private sector investment and youth participation in the agriculture sector in general, especially in seed sub-sector.

3. THE GRANT FUNDING OPPORTUNITY

To support the implementation of the Tera Imbuto Nziza II in Rwanda, AGRA is seeking potential partners (SMEs, NGOs, Financial institutions, public institutions, etc) to manage the necessary sub-awards, to deliver the following three strategic objectives:

Objective 1: Increase availability, utilization and diversity of quality seed and seedlings for target crops (maize, soybean, bean, irish potato, Avocado, chilli and other important horticultural crops). Objective 2: Increase access to finance for seed and seedling businesses

Objective 3: Improve enabling environment for local seed industry growth

The concept note must state the job pathways and incorporate and reflect one or more of the following cross cutting issues:

1. Youth Empowerment: Diversified and increased work opportunities (on-farm, wage, ) for young men and women; Increased competitiveness of youth-led SMEs and agriculture enterprises; Improved enabling envi- ronment for youth agriculture employment; increased youth uptake of training, finance, and new technologies; Strengthened delivery of SME supports, job supports and last mile services to youth; Finance, and other inclusive reforms and programs passed, cascaded, and implemented.
2. Gender Inclusivity: Improved enabling environment for women farmers; Increased revenues for women-led SMEs; Increased employment for women
3. Climate: Improved national climate strategies; Increased farmer readiness for climate shocks

4. ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS  

4.1 Type of partners  

The applicant must meet the following criteria:

1. Well established SMES in agricultural development with demonstrable track record of delivering positive social and economic impact for smallholder farmers in Rwanda.
2. Well established private company, SMEs, or BDS professional with a track record of service delivery to value chain actors that work with smallholder farmers.
3. Business Member Organization (BMOs) with a track record of delivering impact for smallholder farmers.
4. Civil society organization or local think-tank organization engaged in agricultural development or developing knowledge products used in policy formulation or designing programs that are beneficial to farmers.
5. Conversant with continental mutual accountability frameworks such as CAADP and the related BRR process vi. Financial institutions with track record to facilitate business in agriculture vii. Currently not blacklisted from participating in AGRA’s project implementation

4.2 Partner capacity  

The applicant must meet the following criteria:

1. Proven performance in implementing agricultural development programs and projects. ii. Relevant experience in seed business, agricultural technology promotion and awareness creation

Adequate assets, systems, structures, and presence in the main agricultural regions of the country. Presence here refers to availability of staff, assets such as vehicles and other field tools in the Rwanda AGRA target ge- ographies. iv. Proper leadership, governance, financial management, internal controls and monitoring systems, and ac- countability.

1. In-depth understanding of mainstreaming approaches for climate resilience, nutrition sensitive agriculture and participation of vulnerable groups such as women and youth in regional value chains will be considered an asset.
2. Excellent grasp of markets systems analysis and design of interventions that have the potential to sustainably capture large number of smallholder farmers.
3. Having a well-built agri-input supply network viii. Well established and recognized in Rwanda seed industry.
4. Well and organized seed production processes, processing, branding, storage,

AGRA is re-inviting submissions of grant applications from interested and qualified partners operating in agriculture and or related sectors. In terms of geographical presence, an organization needs to demonstrate that it is well established in at least one of the provinces. Applicants will be required to possess requisite technical capacities and present CVs of key staff who will implement the project, registration certificates, audited financial statement and any other document may help the analysis of organization capacity.

AGRA may request additional documentation or references to ascertain declarations that applicants will submit in response to this call for concept notes. Applicants do so on their own volution and motivation, and AGRA will not reimburse any expenses related to preparation and submission of the concept notes.

Please note that in order to ensure optimal results and effectiveness of the program, applicants may be organized into a consortium where they will work together to address common challenges limiting the growth of market opportunities for the value chain which include maize, beans, soybean, Irish Potato and vegetables. Work opportunities creation for youth and women, , enabling seed sector expansion and consideration of women & youth are amongst the focus. Expanding the utilization of lime and other soil conservation practices among farmers is also a critical area under consideration for such a consortium.

2. Key work packages

The successful implementation of TIN II intervention will require a set of activities executed following seed related extension models to bridge the following gaps identified:

1. Lack of financial access for SMES to scale up and commercialize for markets.
2. Insufficient quantity and quality of seeds (EGS and Certified) produced, that at times does not mirror, the preferences of the farmers or the markets.
3. Increase variety turnover; fast-tracking variety release, streamlining variety release process, and shortening variety release to commercialization time
4. Insufficient and unsuitable varieties of potato and soybean seeds for processing and farmer demand.
5. Limited investment in tissue culture and greenhouse infrastructure necessary to increase the production of early generation seeds for potato.
6. Incomplete process for the national seed laboratory to get ISTA accreditation and accession to OECD seed inspection scheme.
7. Quality of seeds is low and not complying to international standards
8. Inadequately trained private seed inspectors leading to unmet need for inspection and certification services for seed producers and consequently to lack of quality seeds for farmers.
9. Small volumes of seed produced by SMEs leading to non-commercialization of the sector.
10. Lack of implementation of regional seed policy.
11. Low levels of mechanization and value addition in the seed sector.
12. Inadequate adoption and practice of agronomic practices leading to huge losses and impacts on seed sec- tor due climate change.
13. Limited operational capacity of the regulator to enforce seed law and its guidelines.
14. Gaps in seed law creating loopholes in enforcement of quality assurance guidelines
15. Lack of seed planning and coordination thus leading to uncoordinated interventions

The contemplated interventions include but are not limited to:

• Innovative backward and forward smallholder engagement
• Inclusive financial models promoted.
• Partnerships, consortia, and other platforms established.
• Strengthen BDS for SMEs, industry associations.
• Support trade facilitation measures

Key expected results from this work include the following, for which the investments will be contributing

General, the interventions will contribute to:

1. Reaching 1,500,000 smallholder farmers with access to timely and affordable inputs, especially seed. This will contribute to the increase of seed use from 37.1% in 2023 to 70 % in 2027.
2. Provide 500 SME’s (Agriculture produce and Agri food services) and cooperatives with capacity enhancement skills and tools to enable them play the middle role between smallholder farmers and off takers, processors and exporters (Market)
3. Unlocking at least USD 10,000,000 in trade and investments in agri-food system through access to finance by SMEs as well as foreign investment in the agricultural space as a result of a functional enabling environment.
4. Contribute to GoR’s ambition to increase avocado export revenues from $11 million to $258 million and in- crease chili export revenues from $8 million to $68 million by 2029.
5. Regional and multinational seed companies play a crucial role in crop diversification, ensuring farmers ac- cess highly resilient crop and market-demanded varieties; therefore AGRA will develop a good strategy to engage multinationals and facilitate their partnership with local seed companies that are still at a nascent stage

Specific results per Objective are proposed as follows:

Expected results  

Objective 1: Increase availability, utilization and diversity of quality seed and seedlings for target crops

• Fast track variety release of nutrient dense and climate smart varieties
• Increased farmer adoption of diverse, nutritious, climate-smart and market-demanded crop 
• Improved sustainable production, supply and demand of seeds of all classes including EGS and certified seed of improved varieties
• Enhanced operational capacity of agricultural SMEs to develop competitive business models that benefit the farmers.
• Increased access to certified seed of diverse climate smart, nutrient dense crop 
• Increased seed market, consumer and customer driven product profiles for selected value 
• Improved capacity of seed companies and seedling nurseries to adopt internal quality control and to produce quality seeds.
• Enhanced the capacity of regulatory agency to certify seeds and seedlings of a wide range of crops
• Enhance capacity and quality of decentralized seedling nursery 

Objective 2: Increase access to finance and markets for seed businesses

• Enhanced access to commercial sources of financing for seed companies and seedling nursery 
• Increased demand for financial services by SMEs through provision of BDS.
• Increased supply and demand of market-ready agricultural products.
• Increased domestic and intra-African trade in seed sector.
• Improved quality and grades of seeds needed for increased access to market and trade
• Increased operational capacity, knowledge, and skills for SMEs to respond to markets among SMEs and agri-

food industries

• Scale up proven business models for input finance and contract farming, especially for horticultural value chains.

Objective 3: Improve enabling environment for local seed industry growth

• Revision of seed law to accommodate recent advances in the seed sector, particularly focusing on diverse crops of legumes and non-hybrid crops
• Predictable, inclusive, and harmonized seed and trade policies passed and implemented
• Policies supporting the liberalization of the seed sector to enhance private investors’ participation and create of environment for fair competition
• Review policies and enabling environment for transparent private sector participation in the Agro-food industry.
• Strengthened collaboration among Ministries and other key organizations towards support to Agriculture.
• Provide enabling environment for women and youth farmers to play active roles in the seed
• sector

Develop regulations to support the implementation of various aspects of the seed law

3. Period of performance

The overall period of performance is estimated to be 36 months maximum, from October-2024 to September 2027.

4. Period Grant applications will be accepted.

This Request for grant applications will remain open for a period of 17 working days, from 28 July to 15 August 2024 before 11.59pm East African Time (EAT). Interested organizations/ institutions must submit before the final deadline; grant applications will be evaluated on a rolling basis as indicated above in the synopsis. Applications made after the final deadline will not be considered.

5. Technical evaluation criteria How to app

NB. For financial proposals to be considered the organization technical proposal must score 70 points and The financial proposal will be reviewed against the proposed approach and methodology, and cost negotiations held if applicable.

6. How to apply

If eligible and interested in this Request for concept note, please submit your application by following the steps described below;

1. Request a new account from here: https://agra.synisys.com/
2. Create an account as an applicant.
3. Log in to the system with your credentials: https://agra.synisys.com/portfolio/requests
4. Choose the request and submit your application via Create New Response section of the form

The following must be presented with your submission;

1. A copy of your organization’s registration certificate
2. Detailed organization profile together with CVs of the project team
3. Project implementation brief budget
4. Most recent Audited Financial statement