This picture was taken by Herve Irankunda for Feed the Future Rwanda Hinga Weze Activity on September 9, 2019, in Ngororero District in Eastern Rwanda. It features two beneficiaries of Hinga Weze, a five-year $32.6 million USAID-funded project (2017-2022) that aims to sustainably increase smallholder farmers’ income, improve the nutritional status of women and children, and increase the resilience of Rwanda’s agricultural and food systems to a changing climate. Hinga Weze works to empower over 530,000 smallholder farmers across 10 districts.

These men were pictured using pesticide on their plot of Irish potatoes on a terraced hillside. Hinga Weze is supporting use improved pest management in order to control crop pests and also to construct terraces on 2,000 hectares of land order to control soil erosion especially around the hilly parts of Rwanda. The farmers including women are able to gain and control incomes from the improved yields, and therefore reserving enough for their households to improve nutritional intake.