Pacifique Agiraneza (Class of 2028, Rwanda) has a very clear dream for the future: that no child in Africa should have to grow up without access to nutritious food. Her conviction was born in her community. She is committed to developing agricultural solutions that improve sustainable food production while responding to farmers’ realities.
In 2024, together with her former high school classmate, Sam Mugisha, Pacifique founded Light Farmers Ltd. in the Bugesera District, Eastern Rwanda. The venture was launched to address two challenges affecting many communities in the area: food insecurity, especially childhood malnutrition, and a lack of job opportunities for women and young people.
Through greenhouse vegetable production, the project improves the communities’ access to nutritious food. Additionally, the team runs training programs that help families learn how to prepare balanced diets and establish home gardens, enabling them to produce a portion of their own food sustainably. Light Farmers employs six permanent staff members and approximately 20 additional seasonal workers, creating job opportunities within the local community.
Pacifique knew that if she wanted to bring about real change, she had to understand agriculture from its foundations. She attended conferences and trainings, but soon realized she needed a deeper preparation to transform her ideas into solutions, and that is how she found EARTH.
Today, as a second-year student and Mastercard Foundation Scholar at EARTH, she says the University has enabled her to move even closer to fulfilling her promise. “EARTH has given me the opportunity to learn and experiment. I am learning about agriculture, improving my Spanish, and meeting people from different countries. I have been able to become part of this community and step out of my comfort zone to become the best version of myself; that is what I love about EARTH.”
In 2026, her project, Light Farmers, received funding from the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Entrepreneurship Fund (SEF), an initiative that supports enterprises led by Mastercard Foundation Scholars. With this support, Pacifique and her team are expanding the capacity of their greenhouse to reach more families in Rwanda. For Pacifique, this project represents just the beginning. She wants to contribute to the strengthening of food systems in Rwanda and across Africa, convinced that the continent has the potential to produce nutritious food for its population.
The Mastercard Foundation Scholars Entrepreneurship Fund (SEF) supports business initiatives led by Mastercard Foundation Scholars, helping them move from ideas to action. In 2025, SEF supported 17 projects involving 20 participants, while in 2026, it supported a further 12 projects involving 15 participants.
Throughout her academic journey, Pacifique has learned that sustainable agriculture is not a distant ideal, but a reality that can be adapted to the needs of individual farmers. Through classes and fieldwork, she also understood that the most effective solutions emerge from an understanding of each community’s context.
She recently developed an interest in agricultural entomology. She dreams of applying integrated pest management, mandala plot design, and ethnobotanical knowledge to help smallholder farmers produce more food, make better use of their resources, and strengthen the resilience of their production systems.
Although she recognizes that transforming food systems is an enormous challenge, Pacifique also knows that every step she takes at EARTH brings her a little closer to fulfilling the commitment to her community.
