An official of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said South Sudan produced one million metric tons of food in 2023 – a testament that the country can feed itself instead of relying on imports from neighboring Uganda.
FAO Country Representative Meshak Malo said the million tons of maize was produced only on 4 percent of the land in South Sudan.
Mr. Malo said the South Sudanese workforce from both the public and private sectors need to produce for the market.
“We feel that there is a group of South Sudanese that now need to produce for the market,” he said at a press conference during a visit to FAO warehouse in Juba on Thursday.
“The situation has improved and now you can see these equipment in this warehouse including the maize grinder. Why is South Sudan bringing maize from Uganda? The important thing is that the 1,000,000 metric ton was produced only from 4% of the land.”
The humanitarian official emphasized that young people can help the country produce more food by cultivating up to 10 percent of the agricultural land.
“We need the young people, the missing gap, in order for us to be to do the other 4% so that we reach 8% or 10% of the land is the young people. If the young people can come to the land, South Sudan will exit.”
Mr. Malo further stressed the importance of government support to various productive sectors including the fisheries and livestock businesses in order to eradicate high levels of poverty.
“We are looking at all the segments. We are looking at the fishermen, and we are looking at some farmers. As you’ve seen, FAO has improved, we used to import all the seeds. Last year 30% of the seeds came from South.”
Mr. Malo said South Sudan used to import all seeds but there was an improvement last year which saw 30 percent of the seed produced in South Sudan.
He stated that one South Sudanese farmer earned almost 500,000 US dollars from the UN agency after selling seeds, an activity he hailed as an improvement of the economy.
He added that FAO is not only focusing on emergency resilience but also on development, aiming to address the issues across the board.
“So, let’s move together, because if you see the rising number of people who are becoming hungry, where are they coming from? Before they were not hungry.”
“That’s why as FAO, we don’t want to only concentrate on the emergency part. It’s very important. We are working on it, but we want to concentrate all across the board from emergency resilience to development.”