The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) on Friday inaugurated a modern storied office building in Rumbek in Lakes State.
The colorful event was attended by officials from the national ministry of agriculture and food security, Lakes State, UNMISS, and other UN agencies among others.
Speaking at the function, FAO’s country Representative in South Sudan, Meshack Malo, said the new building is an indicator that, with peace in Lakes State, the agency can move from emergency to resilience and development. He also praised Lakes State’s performance in agriculture this year.
“This year when we gave a scorecard for agricultural performance in the country, Number one went to Western Equatoria with 133 percent of the food. What it means is that when you are at 100 percent, you produce food that is enough for you. So, Western Equatoria had 33 percent of the food that they could have exported to other areas of South Sudan,” he explained. “The second position went to Lakes State because Lakes State with 92 percent which means that means that the state missed sufficiency by 8 percent. So, the state minister of agriculture, we have a lot of work to do to make sure that the 8 percent is met.”
The third was Eastern Equatoria at 89, the fourth was Warrap at 86, the fifth was Western Bahr el Ghazal at 77, the eighth was Northern Bahr el Ghazal at 70, nine was Central Equatoria at 52, number ten was Upper Nile at 27, eleventh was Unity State at 17 and last was Jonglei at 15 percent,” Malo added.
He said that if more farmers in Lakes State embrace the ox-plow, which FOA is willing to provide, production will significantly increase.
The FAO boss also said the movement of animal vaccines from Juba to Lakes State takes a lot of time and will forthwith be stored in Rumbek because of the new facility.
“I have asked the group here to convert one of the containers and I want to assure you that we will be storing vaccines here now that there is electricity,” Malo said.
For his part, Lakes State Governor Gen. Rin Tueny Mabor urged FAO to skill and build the capacity of the state’s local government.
“Today we are inaugurating the FAO building in Rumbek which will greatly improve your working environment and make Rumbek an FAO program center for the greater Bahr el Ghazal region. We have normalized security in Lakes State, maintain peace, rule of law and order and we are embarking on service delivery and promoting agriculture for food for all to make our people food secure,” he said. “We still face human resource challenges in agriculture extension services and the cooperative sector despite having the state ministry of agriculture, environment, and forestry, and the ministry of cooperatives and rural development.”
“We urge you (FAO) to build skills and capacity at the local government level in the agriculture sector, distribute seeds to farmers as early as February and buy seeds from local farmers for easy distribution,” Governor Tueny added.
He cautioned that the distribution of imported seeds has resulted in the extinction of local varieties and asked FAO to establish an agriculture research center to help farmers produce varieties of seeds.
For his part, the undersecretary at the national ministry of agriculture and food security, Jaden Tongun Emilo, said the new FAO office building is a great milestone and achievement not only for FAO but Lakes State.
“This beautiful office which we are inaugurating will bring the administration of FAO nearer to the people, it will build the capacity of the government staff who will increase food security and finally it is a symbol of a legacy for you Governor who brought peace to the state,” he said. “It is also a legacy for Mr. Malo (of FAO) because it shows that we have graduated from prefabricated housing structures which were the symbol of NGOs and UN agencies.”