sustainability Article Sustainability of Agricultural Crop Policies in Rwanda: An Integrated Cost–Benefit Analysis Mikhail Miklyaev 1,2 , Glenn Jenkins 1,2, * and David Shobowale 1   Citation: Miklyaev, M.; Jenkins, G.; Shobowale, D. Sustainability of Agricultural Crop Policies in Rwanda: An Integrated Cost–Benefit Analysis. Sustainability 2021, 13, 48. https:// dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13010048 Received: 12 November 2020 Accepted: 19 December 2020 Published: 23 December 2020 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neu- tral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Copyright: © 2020 by the authors. Li- censee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/). 1 Faculty of Business and Economics, Eastern Mediterranean University, TRNC via Mersin 10, Gazima ˘ gusa 99450, Turkey; mikhail.miklyaev@cri-world.com (M.M.); shobodave@gmail.com (D.S.) 2 Department of Economics, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON K7L 3N6, Canada * Correspondence: jenkins@econ.queensu.ca Abstract: Rwanda has aimed to achieve food self-sufficiency but faces binding land and budgetary constraints. A set of government policies have been in force for 20 years that have controlled the major cropping decisions of farmers. A cost–benefit analysis methodology is employed to evaluate the financial and resource flow statements of the key stakeholders. The object of the analysis is to determine the sustainability of the prevailing agricultural policies from the perspectives of the farmers, the economy, and the government budget. A total of seven crops were evaluated. In all provinces, one or more of the crops were either not sustainable from the financial perspective of the farmers or are economically inefficient in the use of Rwanda’s scarce resources. The annual fiscal cost to the government of supporting the sector is substantial but overall viewed to be sustainable. A major refocusing is needed of agricultural policies, away from a monocropping strategy to one that allows the farmers to adapt to local circumstances. A more market-oriented approach is needed if the government wishes to achieve its economic development goal of having a sustainable agricultural sector that supports the policy goal of achieving food self-sufficiency. Keywords: Rwanda; agricultural policy sustainability; land scarcity; food self-sufficiency; integrated investment appraisal 1. Introduction The objective of the Rwandan Government’s development framework, known as Vision 2020, has been to convert the economy from an agrarian one into a private-sector-led, knowledge-based economy and to transform the agricultural sector from subsistence-based to one that is market-oriented [1]. To reach its target goals, the Rwandan Government sets targets to which it binds subnational governments via a particular performance contract mechanism called Imihigo contracts [2]. This is one of the various home-grown systems introduced by the govern- ment. It is a top-down process whereby a regional agronomist selects crops each season following the targets set by the government [3]. This Umihigo contractual mechanism has been described as a results-based approach to public sector performance [4]. It employs competition between villages, rewarding the best on the publicly available ranking systems. Consistently underperforming mayors can also be removed. This paper aims to contribute to the existing literature by examining the impacts of this system on the cultivation of the most prioritized crops across the four provinces of Rwanda. The focus is on their financial sustainability from the perspective of the farmers, economic sustainability from the perspective of the society, and fiscal sustainability from the perspective of the government’s budget. It aims to clarify how these policies of promoting the cultivation of specific crops by the province have affected the incentive for longer-term sustainability in each of these dimensions. Under this policy, before each growing season, households submit contracts to local au- thorities indicating that they will grow the selected crops. This system leads to a high level Sustainability 2021, 13, 48. https://dx.doi.org/10.3390/su13010048 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability