A day in the life of Nepo

• Full name: SABAYESU Jean Nepomuscene
• Position: District Agriculture Sector Inspector, Rwanda

Rwandan agriculture is the heart of the country’s economy, with most families farming smallholder plots for food and income. Despite challenges such as the limited land sizes used for cultivation, climate change impacts, and inadequate cold-chain infrastructure, the country is modernising farming with better seeds, terraces, and agribusiness, making the sector both resilient and full of opportunity. To help achieve a successful transition, unsung heroes like Nepo who checks day-to-day setbacks farmers face, like poor irrigation affecting crop growth and plant damage caused by extreme weather, are crucial.

Nepo ensures that farmers' troubles are heard and resolved from the District Level to the Ministry of Agriculture. 

"My primary responsibility is to oversee implementation of agriculture programmes and policies within a district and provide useful recommendation and feedback to the district ministry to address effectively challenges that farmers faced." says Nepo. "I work closely with farmers to know exactly what challenges they have, challenges that limit them in achieving the full potential of their agribusiness."

"Not only this, I do capacity building through training at ACES that enable farmers to do what they know, to do farming in the best way." Nepo adds. He is following the "Train The Trainers" course at the ACES Rubirizi Campus in Kigali, which provides participants with knowledge about refrigeration, cold-chain applications, cooling hub design, and the essential business models for food and pharmaceutical cold-chains.

Nepo is 29 years' old and passionate about helping farmers. 

"My lovely wife always motivates me to serve farmers since she likes farming from childhood." he states with pride. 

His life in a typical day is told visually through the images presented below. Clicking on the images will showcase their captions too.

The daily challenges that Nepo’s farmers face, along with millions of similar smallholder farmers across the African continent, and their potential solutions, will be explored in the Clean Cooling Network’s "A Cool World: Sustainable Cold-Chain for the Global South" conference being held at the University of Birmingham next week (28th – 29th October). The event is free to attend, and you can register here to join us.