The visiting Deputy Director-General of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Beth Bechdol, has urged South Sudanese youth to embrace agriculture to boost the country’s economy and ensure food security.
Addressing reporters at a press conference on Wednesday in Juba at the start of a six-day official visit, she said there is great opportunity in agriculture for young people to support themselves and their families.
“There are such opportunities for young people to get more engaged in agriculture,” Bechdol stated. “I grew up on a family farm in the United States and I can appreciate that a lot of time young people do not see agriculture or farming as being a job or career that they want to pursue,”
She stressed the need for young people to engage more in agriculture to help eradicate poverty to become self-reliant.
“They think it is kind of dirty and some people think you cannot make very much profit, but I believe we have a huge opportunity to show the next generation of young people here in South Sudan that there is a great opportunity to support themselves and their families from agriculture,” the FAO boss advised.
For his part, Meshak Malo, the FAO Country Representative in South Sudan, said the country could produce more than 1 million metric tons of food if young people join agriculture.
“The important thing is that the 1 million metric tons was produced from only 4 percent of the land. So, we need the young people,” he stressed. “The missing gap in order to do the other 4 percent so that we reach 8 or 10 percent of land is the young people. If the young people can come to the land, South Sudan will exit, I promised you.”