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BOR - 20 May 2016

Farmers in Jonglei fear difficult harvest

At least 96 farmers in Jonglei State have been affected by floods along the Nile River, according to a member of the local farmers group. 

“We used to cultivate some vegetables but we got flooded” Abraham Yool, secretary of the group told Radio Tamazuj on Wednesday. “We have left the river bank and have come back to the high land which can’t get flooded. We have begun preparing our lands but there is no rain,”

The population in Bor is reliant on the crops from the farmers. 

Yool said about 45 farmers have moved their farming to the dry lands, while others have begun fishing for food.

“If the farming is like this then it will not be good” Yool said.

Yool said the area lacks an irrigation system. The farmers don’t have a water pump for supplying water to their crops, and a request to be given a water pump was denied by the State Ministry of Agriculture because of a budget shortage.

The farmers had access to two water pumps, but both were taken during the war.