Rwanda tries to protect farmland in Africa's most densely populated nation

KIGALI, Rwanda (AP) — The rhythmic sounds of construction muffle the thud of farmers' hoes on a chilly morning in Rwanda 's capital, where new efforts aim to protect remaining agricultural land from relentless development in Africa's most densely populated country.

Eighty-four-year-old Mukarusini Purisikira had been a farmer before she fled the country to Congo during the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Upon returning, she said, her family's land, which had stretched across the hills, had been taken away for construction. She gestured toward Kigali's high-rise buildings.

Now she grows maize and sweet potatoes on a piece of land the size of a small cottage, which she said is barely enough to feed her.

“It is all I have," she said, looking warily at construction equipment on a ridge nearby.

Now she has a measure of protection. Since September, Rwanda's government has been mapping agricultural land and using satellite imagery to track any development encroaching on farmlands and forests in a country where the population is expected to reach 22 million in a couple of years.

Rwanda is striving to ensure food security amid the latest global pressures on farm inputs like fertilizer, whose prices have been rising since the Iran war began.

The government has imposed fines of up to $3,000 and jail terms of up to six months on developers found to be encroaching.

Some buildings in Kigali have been torn down, though people associated with them didn’t want to comment for fear of government retaliation. The government now plans to incorporate drones for better real-time monitoring.

Meanwhile, land use data from the mayor’s office shows that the Kigali master plan has dedicated nearly a quarter of land — 22% — to agriculture.

City authorities acknowledge that housing construction is attractive due to demand but say future projections show that “farming will be even more productive.” They say the demand for food is also rising and believe that, with innovation, it can be grown on smaller pieces of land.

While most of the food consumed in Kigali comes from other districts in Rwanda, farmland in those areas is shrinking, too, a spokeswoman for the mayor’s office, Emma-Claudine Ntirenganya, told The Associated Press.

The government last year printed and displayed maps showing areas in districts across Rwanda that are designated for construction and reserved for agriculture.

Ntirenganya spoke of going into agriculture “in an urban way. We will be able to show Kigalians that they can also do agriculture and be productive.”

The city administration, which is setting up a greenhouse on its roof, requires developers seeking building permits to include green spaces and gardens in their designs.

Other approaches in Kigali include vertical farms, where vegetables and fruits such as strawberries are grown in stackable plastic containers.

Christian Irakoze co-founded a local company, Eza Neza or “grow well,” that sets up vertical farms in the city and described them as scalable. The AP visited two of them at local homes and another that provides stocks to a grocery store. One grows 600 plants in vertical rows stretching about 50 meters (yards) along a perimeter wall.

Irakoze described his work as “a different way of thinking about farming, from traditional large-scale upcountry farming to something smaller, modular, and that anyone can really do.”

Through the use of locally available inputs such as manure and volcanic sediment in place of soil, Irakoze said farming should be adapted to lessen outside impacts.

“We really have to find ways to find our own solutions, whether through inputs like fertilizers or seeds. Some of these global events are always a reminder that we should definitely have some alternatives,” he said.

Elsewhere in Kigali, a group of young agronomists are training farmers to adopt technologies such as hydroponics to maximize productivity, using water instead of soil.

“The population is increasing, yet our land is not increasing. We make sure that we find solutions that can help farmers to overcome that, and then they produce more,” said one of the agronomists, Richard Bucyana.

Bucyana agreed that solutions such as Rwanda’s help to buffer from global events.

“African governments should start thinking how they can be self-sustainable,” he said.

For more on Africa and development: https://apnews.com/hub/africa-pulse

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A view of buildings on a hillside in Kigali, Rwanda, March 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Christian Irakoze, co-founder of Eza Neza, or "Grow Well," a local company that sets up vertical farms in the city and describes them as scalable, walks inside a home compound in Kigali, Rwanda, March 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Farmers tend to vegetable seedlings at a farm in Muhanga, Rwanda, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A vertical farm set up in a home compound by Eza Neza, or "Grow Well," which installs vertical farms in the city and describes them as scalable, in Kigali, Rwanda, March 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A farmer prepares the soil for planting at a farm in Kigali, Rwanda, March 17, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australia’s most decorated living veteran, Ben Roberts-Smith, did not apply for bail when the war crime murder charges against him were listed in a Sydney court Wednesday.

Roberts-Smith was awarded both the Victoria Cross and Medal of Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan and is only the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

The charges follow a military report released in 2020 that found evidence elite Australian Special Air Service and commando regiment troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners, farmers and other noncombatants. Around 40,000 Australian military personnel served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021, of whom 41 were killed.

The allegations against Roberts-Smith relate to the deaths of five Afghan people who died in 2009 and 2012 while he served in Afghanistan as an elite SAS corporal. Police allege he either shot his victims or ordered a subordinate to shoot them in Oruzgan province where Australia's forces were based.

Police said he had been charged Tuesday with five counts of war crime murder. But the charges laid in court Wednesday were were two counts of war crime murder and three counts of aiding or abetting a war crime murder. All charges carry the same potential maximum sentence of life in prison.

The charges allege Roberts-Smith killed and caused a subordinate to kill at Kakarak village on April 12, 2009. He allegedly caused a subordinate to kill at Darwan village on Sept. 11, 2012. He allegedly killed and caused a subordinate to kill at Syahchow village on Oct. 20, 2012.

Australian law defines war crime murder as the intentional killing in a context of armed conflict of a person who is not taking an active part in the hostilities, such as a civilian, prisoner of war or a wounded soldier.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described Roberts-Smith's arrest as a “difficult time” for the Australian Defense Force.

“We should give thanks every day for the men and women who wear our uniform, who are prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of our nation, to keep our Australian way of life going forward. That doesn’t change,” Albanese told Sky News television.

“It’s important that this not be politicized, and I have no intention of commenting on what is a legal process,” Albanese added.

Opposition leader Angus Taylor called on the federal government to pay for the legal defenses of all military personnel prosecuted for war crimes, including Roberts-Smith.

“It is an imperative that the Commonwealth provide anyone who’s prosecuted in this process, including Ben Roberts-Smith, with ... the financial support they need to defend themselves and to ensure that there is a fair trial,” Taylor told reporters. “The presumption of innocence is crucial.”

Roberts-Smith, 47, spent the night in jail after he was arrested at the Sydney Airport on Tuesday morning, and he did not appear in court either in person or by video link Wednesday.

His lawyers did not enter pleas to the charges or apply for his release on bail. The case was adjourned until June 4.

A civil court has already found similar allegations against Roberts-Smith credible in a defamation suit he brought after newspapers published articles in 2018 accusing him of a range of war crimes. In 2023, a federal judge rejected Roberts-Smith’s claims and ruled that he likely killed four noncombatants unlawfully in 2009 and 2012.

But while the civil court found the war crimes allegations were mostly proven on a balance of probabilities, the war crime murder charges would have to be proved in a criminal court to a higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt.

Media magnate Kerry Stokes helped fund Roberts-Smith's civil court action. Roberts-Smith quit his job as a state manager of Stokes' Seven West Media in 2023 after losing the defamation case.

Roberts-Smith is the second Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign to be charged with a war crime.

Former SAS soldier Oliver Schulz has pleaded not guilty to a charge of war crime murder. He is accused of shooting Afghan man Dad Mohammad three times in the head in an Uruzgan province wheat field in 2012.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers said Schulz's trial is unlikely to be held before 2027.

FILE - Britain's Queen Elizabeth II greets Corp. Ben Roberts-Smith from Australia, who was recently awarded the Victoria Cross, during an audience at Buckingham Palace in London, Nov. 15, 2011. (Anthony Devlin/Pool via AP, File)

FILE - Ben Roberts-Smith arrives at the Federal Court in Sydney, Australia, on June 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)