Soil Fertility and Manure Management—Lessons from the Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Girinka Farmers in the District of Ngoma, Rwanda

Girinka—or the “one-cow per poor family” program—is currently promoted as a poverty reduction strategy in Rwanda. In this program, resource-poor farmers receive a dairy cow and develop various skills and assets to improve their livelihood. One potential benefit of the program is to improve soil fertility through the application of manure. A study was conducted in the Ngoma district of Rwanda to assess the effectiveness of manure usage and current levels of manure knowledge, attitudes, and practices among the program beneficiaries. Our results suggest that more than 90% of Girinka farmers are using manure, and farmers positively attributed increased crop yields and improved soil fertility to manure use. However, farmers were not consistently using recommended manure management practices, citing lack of manure handling and transporting tools, distance to fields, and poor construction of cow sheds as key limiting factors. Significant differences in manure management, access to information and extension services, and constraints hindering manure usage among male and female farmers were also identified in this study. We recommend stronger emphasis on beneficial manure management practices during the Girinka trainings and suggest several ways to improve the potential benefits of manure usage for Girinka farmers in this region of Rwanda.