Migrants from the south then cleared much of the vegetation to create agricultural land, and Kirundo became the breadbasket of Burundi.

Since then, lack of farm inputs, poor infrastructure and shortages of water have caused widespread poverty.

[1] The Bugesera region is part of the Kirundo district, a depression in the inter-lacustrine zone of East Africa that extends across northeastern Burundi and southeastern Rwanda.

[2] Kirundo Province has eight lakes: Rweru, Cohoha, Rwihinda, Kanzigiri, Gacamirindi, Nagitamo, Narungazi and Mwungere.

The wetlands leading out of and into many of the lakes are irrigated for rice and sugar cane fields, and the surrounding hillsides are developed for diverse agricultural production.

The Lacs du Nord Aquatic Landscape Protected Area was created in 2006, in theory conserving over 30,000 hectares (74,000 acres), or 14.2 of Burundi's interior waters, up from 0.2%.

[6] In October 2023 the Inades-Formation Burundi held a workshop on water resource management with local leaders in the capital of Kirundo Province to celebrate World Food Day.

It was noted that although the 2012 water code encouraged good practices and penalized violations, some of the lakes still suffered from pollution and unsustainable illegal fishing.

[19] Kirundo was the "breadbasket of Burundi" and supplied agricultural products such as cereals and legumes to the rest of the country before the Burundian Civil War of 1993–2005.

[24] In the 1980s, BTC started to clear large areas of forest to supply wood to the ovens used to dry tobacco, but did not undertake reforestation.

In 2008 the OPEC Fund for International Development announced a project to build a paved road running 37 kilometres (23 mi) from the city of Kirundo to Gasenyi and the border with Rwanda.

[25] In November 2021 Cyriaque Nshimirimana, Second Deputy-Speaker of the Senate of Burundi, met leaders of the province in the capital of the Commune of Ntega.

He urged them to preserve peace and security, fight drunkenness, polygamy, unwanted pregnancies and corruption, limit births, send their children to school, continue to build the offices of colline chiefs and join cooperatives to accomplish development projects together.

Concerns raised by the audience included the need to repair the Rurata–Ntega road, the lack of teachers and teaching materials in the vocational schools, and the lack of a regional branch of the Banque d’Investissement pour les Jeunes (Investment Bank for Youth).