Insecurity and lack of infrastructure due to ongoing conflict in South Sudan pose major challenges for the country’s smallholder farmers. Alongside the World Food Programme’s emergency assistance to vulnerable populations, the Purchase for Progress initiative is supporting farmers to recover and grow their businesses and to stimulate agricultural markets.
Following many years of internal conflict, the Republic of South Sudan gained independence from the Republic of the Sudan in July 2011. Renewed conflict began in December 2013. As of July 2015, 4.6 million people, 40 percent of the population, were estimated to be facing the risk of acute hunger. The World Food Programme (WFP) provides lifesaving emergency food assistance for the most vulnerable populations, despite facing funding shortfalls and a great deal of logistical challenges.
Today, conflict continues to disrupt markets and forces people to flee their homes and farms. This leaves farmers in many parts of the country unable to tend to their crops. While farmers in more secure areas may continue producing, they are often unable to access markets, many of which have been closed due to the conflict.
Linking humanitarian assistance with sustainable development
Alongside emergency assistance, WFP works to build livelihoods. WFP’s Purchase for Progress (P4P) initiative supports smallholder farmers and agricultural markets to continue functioning during the crisis. With the renewal of conflict in late 2013, P4P activities were put on hold. In April 2014, P4P recommenced implementation in relatively stable and accessible areas in Western, Central and Eastern Equatoria States. Working with a wide variety of partners, P4P helps build smallholders' capacity and assists them to sell their surplus crops to WFP and other buyers. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) has provided seeds, agricultural production tools and extension services. P4P also established a partnership with the South Sudan National Bureau of Standards, a government authority mandated to oversee quality testing and administration. WFP supports the bureau to better facilitate in-country quality testing of crops.
Since operations resumed in 2014, smallholder farmers in South Sudan have marketed 376 mt of crops to WFP, despite challenges such as insecurity, lack of electricity and poor infrastructure, especially a lack of passable roads. WFP plans to purchase another 500 mt in the upcoming season. Food purchased from these farmers is used for emergency operations in the country. However, the country’s general instability makes long-term planning challenging.
“Before P4P, farmers had no connection to the market – we didn’t have a store, there was no warehouse, people were just selling a few kilograms of maize – but now with P4P, there is a market, we can sell in bigger quantities and make money to send our kids to school”, says James Apora Ola, President of Alaro Kodi farmers’ organization in Palawar, Eastern Equatoria State.
Farmers in Palwar benefit from working together
The farmers of Alaro Kodi are benefitting from a new warehouse and road leading to their community, constructed under WFP’s feeder roads programme. They have also seen the benefits of working together. “P4P has helped us understand the importance of working as a group. As a group we help one another. We work on each other’s farms, cultivating, planting, weeding and harvesting, and we sell together,” says Massimino Open, Treasurer of Alado Kori.
Members of Alaro Kodi sold 70 mt of maize in their first contract with WFP. Motivated by the success of the previous sale, they aim to market 170 mt of commodities to WFP this season.
Although purchases have been carried out successfully, long waits for payment have proved challenging for the farmers, who are accustomed to receiving cash upon delivery. To address this challenge, P4P is working with the Cooperative Bank of South Sudan and the Food, Agribusiness and Rural Markets (FARM) project to launch the Crop Advance credit scheme in Yambio. By increasing farmers’ organizations’ ability to access credit, this project will help them fund the aggregation process and wait for payment.
Slow but steady progress for Singby farmers’ organization
In Nzara County, Western Equatoria, the smallholder farmers who make up Singby farmers’ organization are also building their businesses. With profits from sales to WFP and other international organizations, the farmers were able to afford to undergo the labour-intensive process of clearing land overgrown by prolonged conflict, expanding their group farm from about 6 to 32 hectares (15 to 75 fedans).
Lino Baboo, chairman of Singby farmers’ organization, is optimistic but pragmatic about the organization’s future: “We will gradually increase our production and our sales. How can we run here? Road conditions are poor and it is difficult to access inputs. It is more realistic to have slower but steady progress.”
Learn more:
Fact Sheet: P4P in South Sudan
Article: P4P Encourages Farmers to View Agriculture as Business
Small Farmers In South Sudan Take Bold Step Into Markets
Video: Produced in South Sudan (video)
Article: Meet the South Sudanese Farmers Who Want To Feed Their War-Torn Nation