In Greater Equatoria, production prospects for first season crops to be harvested in August/September are mixed, due to dry weather conditions affecting several areas.
Planted area severely reduced in most conflict-affected counties due to worsening security conditions and massive displacement.
This document aims to periodically provide a general outlook on the condition of food crops in South Sudan. The analysis is based on several remote sensing products, such as the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), the Vegetation Health Index (VHI) and, in particular, the FAO Agricultural Stress Index (ASI). The peculiarity of ASI is to focus on water stress specifically in agricultural areas, while other remote sensing products cover vegetation and rainfall across the country. The information from satellite imagery is then cross-checked with evidence from the field – e.g. crop planting and harvest assessments - along with data on rainfall amounts provided by several automatic weather stations and rain gauges located across the country. The lack of long-term series of rainfall data as well as problems to access information in most conflict-affected areas limit the depth of the analysis.