Farmers’ groups in Yei River County in Central Equatoria State are appealing to the government and Non-governmental Organizations to invest in the mechanization of agriculture to mitigate food insecurity and check the galloping inflation across the country.
The Yei cultivators say the county has fertile soils and favorable rainfall suitable for agricultural production and is capable of feeding the whole country. However, insecurity and lack of support for mechanizing agriculture have curtailed large-scale farming.
Festo Ade, a member of the Kembe Cooperative Group in Giru, 4 miles east of Yei, says his group consisting of 35 members has been using hand tools like hoes to till twelve fedans (acres) of land this year.
He says they harvested more than 20 metric tons of maize grain, several sacks of beans, and groundnuts in the first season and plan to open up more than 10 acres for planting in the next season.
According to Ade, however, another challenge his group faces is post-harvest losses due to poor storage.
“We in this cooperative need our tractor so that we continue with farming. Secondly, we are not funded and thirdly we do not have good storage facilities for our products here,” he says. “Our plan for next year is that we are set to clear and uproot trees on more than 10 fedans but we do not have the budget and that is a big challenge.”
Another farmer, Moga Moses, a member of the Apure Cooperative Society located west of Yei town, said they planted 8 eight acres of maize, 2 of beans, groundnuts, and vegetables for this second season crop planting season.
He called on the government, development partners, and UN agencies like WFP and FAO to promote the local purchase of fresh harvests and seeds in Yei to empower and encourage local farmers to increase their production.
“We have already planted 8 fedans of maize, 2 fedans of beans, and 1 fedan of groundnuts. We are 28 members in our group and we do not have a tractor,” he says. “Our request to WFP, FAO and the government is to support the farmers in Yei with farm tractors and buy from us because at the moment we cannot sell our products in Juba or other parts of the country due to lack of transport and poor roads.”
“Supporting us locally will empower farmers in Yei River County,” he adds.
Meanwhile, Dara Felix, a progressive farmer, and the chief executive of Destiny Farm International, which deals in food crop production and value addition through processing, says that although Yei lies in the green belt, lack of motivation toward large-scale production is negatively affecting agricultural production.
He insists that South Sudan has the potential for rapid economic growth if the government prioritizes investment in large-scale agricultural mechanization programs.
“Our farmers are not supported and that is a reality and we cannot talk about food security when we are using ordinary hoes. How can we do massive production when the government has not set funds to stimulate food production?” he asks. “We need a bank that is to benefit farmers. We talk about famine in the whole country but you need to stop the violence and allow us to do production so that we can feed our people.”
Dara recommends that for South Sudan agriculture to flourish again, there is a need for the government to construct a road network, and storage facilities, deploy modern farming technologies and create linkage to regional and international markets to boast its economic sustainability through agriculture.
For his part, Amba Faustine, the program director of a Yei-based local NGO, Mugwo Development Organization, says before South Sudan gained independence, his organization invested huge resources and funds in building the capacity of local farmers in technical and modern crop production techniques.
He avers that although farmers were massively empowered to produce enough food to reduce the importation of produce from neighboring countries, the 2016 conflict affected the abilities of farmer’s cooperative groups to produce surplus food in Yei.
Amba urges the government to restore peace, and security and invest in large-scale agricultural production schemes through financial loans and tractors so as attract more farmers and farming cooperatives back into the agriculture sector.
“We have virgin lands with productive soils and the products brought from Uganda can be produced here at a cheaper cost but the 2016 conflict stopped this,” he says.
According to Amba, despite efforts to support the country’s mission to increase food production in the short and long term, insecurity still hinders efforts of humanitarian and development organizations to effectively support farmers in the rural areas of Yei.
However, the Central Equatoria State minister for agriculture and forestry, Lily Kapuki, says the state government and development partners are working on modalities to improve agricultural food production.
She calls on the youth in the state to invest in agricultural production to reduce unemployment, poverty, and dependency on food from neighboring Uganda.
“As youths, they need to be constructive and engage in agriculture because they have the energy,” she says. “As a ministry, we shall support them and I am sure that after two years, we shall be food secure and reduce insecurity. As a state, let us eat what we produce locally.”
On his part, Manase Tom, a youth farmer in Yei River County, blamed the government for failing to invest in agriculture and said Central Equatoria is suitable for food factories and large-scale production.
“The reason why the youth are not involved in farming is that farming is very tedious work and in these modern times, we need mechanized farming methods than manual labor,” he says. “If the government can make agriculture attractive, many of us the youth can invest our time in the sector to produce enough food for the country from Yei River County.”
He adds, “This can only happen if the government can support farming and make it attractive.”
However, state Agriculture Minister Kapuki, maintains that her government is interested in supporting the youths who are in cooperative farming societies because they can easily be supported by the government and development partners.
“My message to the youth is to organize yourselves into agriculture cooperative societies so that the ministry and good Samaritans can help you so that we can move into mechanized farming as a new method,” she insists. “We will also open produce markets because we want our youth to abandon violence and work for peace and the development of Central Equatoria State.”
Boboya James, a policy analyst with the Institute for Policy and Research in Juba appealed to the state and national governments to prioritize investment in the agriculture sector by injecting cash and technical resources to build vibrant and stable economic growth.
“I would like the government to begin thinking practically. The way we fought the 21-year civil war should be the same way to fight food insecurity and engage in agriculture,” he advises. “The way to go is for the government of South Sudan to tarmac the road to agriculture-producing areas such as Yei, Yambio, and Eastern Equatoria so that farmers can bring products to the market. The government should invest money in the agriculture sector from the oil revenues.”
“My message to President Salva Kiir is that there is a need for political will to support the agriculture ministry because without having practical agricultural production in this country, nothing will move this country forward,” he adds.
Boboya also suggests the need for the government to create a conducive investment climate to attract investors in the agriculture sector.
“The economy is our agricultural food, the oil, the gold and milk from the cows and things which are locally produced but this is not happening in South Sudan,” he says. “We invested money in the private sector managed by foreigners, making them grow rich instead of supporting local agriculture. My message to South Sudanese is that let us begin to love our local agricultural produce.”
South Sudan highly depends on imported produce to feed its population.