Creating jobs in the face of coronavirus
How the World Food Programme is creating opportunities for youth in South Sudan through agriculture
Story by Musa Mahadi
Like the rest of the world, South Sudan is in the clutches of coronavirus. Despite having just 150 known cases, disruptions caused by the pandemic are threatening jobs in a country that already had an unemployment rate of 12 percent. Thousands of young people, the bulk of the country’s population are worried about their future.
But the World Food Programme (WFP) is stepping up its programmes not only to provide food assistance to vulnerable people, but also to create employment opportunities for youth through agriculture.
New beginnings
21-year-old Filemina Simon is not your average young woman. She has turned her life around, having once relied on WFP for food, she now sells food to them.
When Filemina divorced two years ago, she had three children to take care of, no house to live in and did not know what to do.
“My husband provided everything for the family,” says Filemina. “When he kicked me out, I felt the world tumbling on me.”
Divorced and now a single parent, with no one to support her, she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands. And, she has never looked back.
She went back to her parents’ home on the outskirts of Yambio town, located 355 km west of the capital Juba, where she started farming.
“After farming for about a year, my home had enough food I could even give some to neighbors,” Filemina narrates with a hearty smile. “I then discovered through agriculture I would get income that can help me do other things.”
Escaping the poverty trap
Filemina and some 200 other women in Yambio, are now making great strides out of poverty, thanks in part to an initiative run jointly by WFP, Star Trust Organisation and a local financial services provider, Kush Bank.
Known as the smallholder agriculture market support, the initiative supported by Canada and Germany, aims at supporting small scale farmers by connecting them to viable markets whilst strengthening their capacity on post-harvest management and marketing.
The initiative also involves training farmers on best farming practices as well as land utilization. It is part of WFP’s efforts to build people’s resilience and contribute towards sustainable peace.
As a result, the farmers are steering away from low-input low-output subsistence agriculture to low-input high-yield crops that allow them to feed their families as well as sell excess into the market.
Reaping big rewards
Farmers are not only trained to produce more, but WFP also provides a ready market for the produce.
Through Rural Aggregation Centres (RAC), marketing points established at the village level in close proximity to farmers,the small holder farmers can sell their surplus and get paid promptly through a voucher system by a financial service provider.
“I am very happy, I sold 15 bags of maize grain,” says Felemina “I used the money to pay school fees for my children and repaired my two bicycles.”
For the second season of harvesting, Filemina used the proceeds to construct a house and used what remained to enroll herself for a course in midwifery at a local university.
Jackson Ganiko Mahmud is a young man who dreams big about agriculture. The 35-year-old from Bakpara village opened two farmlands totaling 15 hectares. He has permanently employed 10 young men who work as laborers in his farms. Last year he sold half a ton of maize to WFP and hopes to sell more in the next season.
“I have built houses which are being sub-let and bring in USD 1,800 per year,” says Jackson. “If I was not doing farming, I don’t think I would have achieved this.”
Despite these achievements, challenges such as lack of transport and infrastructure are affecting productivity of farmers.
In 2019, WFP procured more than 8,000 metric tons of cereals from some 5,000 smallholder farmers like Filemina across the country. WFP is not only buying directly from smallholder farmers but it is also dealing with over 20 local food suppliers who source grain from small and medium sized farms, particularly in Western Equatoria and the Upper Nile regions of the country.
So far in 2020, WFP has procured more than 12,500 tons of grains from small holder farmers across the country and hopes to buy more, providing a much-needed incentive for South Sudanese farmers and creating much needed jobs.
