At the fourth annual Farmer's Fair in Torit, farmers learn all about crop cultivation from one another. During this particularly dry period, drought-resistant crops such as cassava and sorghum attracted lots of attention. Businesses as well as farmers sold their agricultural innovations and demonstrated their products in sample plots.
Every year, the Eastern Equatoria State Ministry of Agriculture organizes a Farmer's Fair. This year Cordaid’s South Sudan office and 8 partners lended a hand. With the issue of drought on everybody’s mind, ‘improved natural resource management for sustainable livelihoods’ was the main theme of the 2015 edition. Over 2500 farmers from all the eight Counties participated in the fair and 30 exhibitions were displayed.
Farmers coming from a drought-prone area were impressed by the knowledge they acquired on drought-resistant crops.
Objectives: educating and demonstrating
The goals of the Farmer’s Fair were:
- To educate farmers about skills and technologies for agriculture. Learning from the experience of other farmers, for example varieties of produce that are grown in other counties, helps them to diversify their income and income.
- To allow farmers to demonstrate their good agricultural produce and sell their products
- To give farmers the opportunity to buy agricultural implements that are appropriate for their farm
- To learn from processing companies and their finished goods.
Crop diversification for drought risk reduction
Farmers from Narus Payam (Kapoeta East County), coming from a drought-prone area, were impressed by the knowledge they acquired on drought-resistant crops such as cassava and early maturing sorghum. The group said they are going to cultivate these crops with the technical advice from agriculture extension officers and local NGOs.
Farmers could see and experience a vegetable field and nursery seed bed, cassava, sweet potatoes, maize intercrop with cassava, short maturing sorghum and also a simple water harvesting pond with a plastic sheet, where water is collected and used for irrigation.
A local blacksmith from Kudo Payam demonstrated how to make molodas and hoes.
New technologies for improved agriculture and irrigation
Farmers learned how to use treadle pumps and ox-plough technology. A local blacksmith from Kudo Payam demonstrated how to make molodas and hoes (agriculture tools widely used in South Sudan) to fit the choices of the farmers.
Women farmers said that they will grow vegetables on a group basis and this will help them to earn a cash income.
The Deputy Governor of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forest praised Cordaid’s support in jointly organizing the Farmer Fair in 2015.