AfDB gives South Sudan $14m grant to boost agriculture

The African Development Bank (AfDB) has signed an agreement with South Sudan to give Juba a $14 million grant to boost agriculture.

According to a statement, the Agricultural Markets, Value Addition and Trade Development five-year project which aims to enhance agricultural productivity will be implemented by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations in close liaison with South Sudan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security.

“The project will help increase productivity and incomes of almost 20,000 farming families in Central and Eastern Equatoria and Jonglei states, most of whom are formerly internally displaced persons who have now returned to their homes.

“The project will create aggregation business opportunities for farmers and traders, including women and youth, and provide them with new skills and the agro-processing equipment they need to produce competitive products.

“Farmer groups joining the aggregation centres will have their products not only tested and quality certified, but also traded with the private sector on their behalf,” the statement says.

South Sudan has considerable unrealised agricultural potential, but the effects of continued violence combined with unprecedented flooding have seriously damaged food production, resulting in a huge food import bill, according to AfDB.

“Thanks to this generous contribution from the African Development Bank, farmers will move faster from subsistence to commercial agriculture by having access to new technologies, markets and linkages with other services and actors,” said FAO Representative in South Sudan, Meshack Malo.

Despite the country’s agricultural potential and 78 percent of the population employed in agriculture, the sector contributes only one-tenth of the GDP of South Sudan.

The country’s agricultural products struggle to find their way into international markets due partly to the lack of adequate food quality controls, according to reports.

In January 2020, President Salva Kiir said he was banking on oil money to revive South Sudan’s stalled agriculture and save its population from perennial dependence on food imports and relief supplies.

Edited by Olajumoke Adeleke