Extension basis of transformation of agriculture in Southern Sudan

By Jacob K. Lupai

November 25, 2009 –Agriculture by all means is the source of the food we need and is at the heart of food security. It is therefore obvious that policy makers have recognized the importance of agriculture not only for food security but as the backbone of the economy especially in Sub Saharan Africa. This suggests agriculture is at the heart of development. However, in Southern Sudan there is widespread impression that agriculture is underperforming as evidenced by our dependence on imported food items from the neigbhouring countries. Nonetheless to be fair the 22-year civil war that ended in 2005 had taken its toll on agriculture. There was no way agriculture could be developed as farmlands became battle grounds. We may, however, need to identify the core problem of underperformance of the agriculture sector in post war era of peace in order to offer a solution.

This author in an article, Agriculture in Southern Sudan vital but neglected, that appeared in The Juba Post Vol. 5 Issue 71 of 03-07 September 2009, showed statistically that the core problem could have been poor budgetary allocation to the agriculture sector. For example, agriculture, forestry, animal resources and fisheries combined only got 1.6 per cent of the total approved budget of 2008. Security and Rule of Law got 44.2 per cent and Physical Infrastructure got 15.1. In fact agriculture was the least in the list of budgetary allocations despite the official pronouncement that agriculture is the backbone of the economy of Southern Sudan.

The same article of this author but under editorially modified heading, Agriculture most neglected in South Sudan, that appeared in Southern Eye newspaper Vol.002 Issue 283 of Tuesday 17 November 2009, summed up people’s frustration with the poor performance of agriculture in Southern Sudan. No meaningful transformation of agriculture could take place when the sector was miserably starved of resources. However, another question could be how the sector, the backbone of the economy, ended up with the least budgetary allocation in the first place. Under budgeting could have been probably due to poor abstract understanding of the contribution of extension to transformation of agriculture from traditional to modern.

Understanding extension services to farmers in transforming agriculture is crucial to develop agriculture for self-reliance in production to achieve food security in Southern Sudan. However, in the context of agriculture we may need to be absolutely clear of what is exactly extension and it is especially convenient for people who are not agriculturists to know what extension is. Extension can be defined as an ongoing process of getting useful information to people and then in assisting those people to acquire the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes to utilize effectively this information. The general goal of extension is to enable people to use these skills, knowledge and information to improve their quality of life. Agricultural extension is therefore one of the instruments a government uses to achieve its agricultural development objectives. It aims to increase the efficiency of the family farm in order to increase production for food security and an improved standard of living.

Although farmers already have a lot of knowledge about their environment and their farming system, extension can still bring them other knowledge and information which they do not have. For example, knowledge about the general principles of pest control, the ways in which manure is broken down to provide plant nutrients are all areas of knowledge that extension can usefully bring to farmers. The transfer of knowledge and skills to farmers and their families is an important extension activity to understand in the effort to achieve household food security. It may be convenient to define what food security is. Food security may be defined as when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life. This may give us a clue as to the importance of extension in technology transfer to improve food production.

In view of the central role extension plays in agricultural development and food production it is obvious that adequate resources are needed for an efficient extension system. Extension cannot function with the type of budgetary allocation to agriculture we have so far seen. Capacity building and efficient delivery of services to farmers to increase production are some of the characteristics of extension. In addition extension staff need office space, mobility, accommodation and recreational facilities to increase motivation for efficiency and higher productivity. Naturally these will never be realized without adequate resources.

It is not only extension that matters to the transformation of agriculture. Research is also very important. When reflecting on issues of extension and research, a clear understanding is needed of the tasks and goals of extension. From this evolves the problems which need to be analysed. As we are already aware, the goal of extension is to help and enable farm people to change their behavior in order to solve or mitigate their problems through communication where relationship is voluntary cooperation and partnership in contrast to enforcement, domination or manipulation. Research provides for better understanding of the living conditions and farming problems of people. Extension should therefore be engaged more in action or applied research to ensure that the research results contribute directly to the betterment of the extension activities with farmers. Participatory action research is of interest here where the farmer is central. Extension and research activities are only a means to an end and to disregard the farmer vital input is to guarantee that much extension and research activity will be irrelevant and not a cost-effective use of scarce budgetary resources. Extension and research therefore go together in the effort to improve production for the achievement of food security. An extension service cannot function for long unless there is an effective research programme. Trials carried out in farmers’ fields are an important feature of the extension operations and such trials provide a final testing ground for research findings before they can even be recommended by extension on a large scale.

Extension will not transform agriculture in Southern Sudan when the agriculture sector as already stated above is miserably starved of vital resources. The evidence is glaringly clear as witnessed by staff being rendered redundant because of the lack of motivation and support to function as expected. Evidently staff are demoralized. It is no wonder that some have given up hope altogether of being productive. Others indulge in endless idle talk. Still others are not secure and feel threatened of their positions. This latter group will do whatever it takes to protect their status quo. Another unfortunate group is a bunch of self-centered and rumormongers who seem to strive best in confusion where professionalism is hardly of significance anymore. This group suffers from inadequacy where members seem to protect themselves as in birds of the same feather flock together. The implication for development in Southern Sudan is dire. No nation will function without highly qualified and experienced technocrats with the necessary skills. However, experience seems to show that idleness is one serious problem in agricultural development in Southern Sudan.

For extension to contribute effectively to the transformation of agriculture to a modern sector it is important to understand the concept of sustainable agriculture. Small-scale farmers in Southern Sudan are farming under rain-fed conditions in diverse and risk-prone environments. To help them make their farming systems more productive and sustainable we need appropriate extension strategies and techniques of working with these farmers. In understanding the concept of sustainable agriculture it is important to know that in the context of agriculture sustainability refers to the capacity to remain productive while maintaining the resource base. Agriculture is judged to be sustainable if it is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, humane and adaptable. In view of this well-functioning institutions and well-deliberated policies are needed on all levels in order to ensure sustainable agriculture. In agricultural development, raising production for consumption is often given primary attention, but there is an upper limit to the productivity of ecosystems. Production and consumption therefore have to be brought into balance on an ecologically sustainable level.

When we talk of technology in the context of agriculture it is defined as a way of doing something and technology can be generated by research and by inventive farmers. A basic function of extension is to assist the transfer of technology by ensuring that an adequate amount of high quality knowledge about it is present in the farming community. Helping farmers to acquire this knowledge involves activity which needs setting in motion. There are three approaches to extension work with farmers. They are consultancy, promotional and participative approaches. The consultancy approach involves providing advice on request and the initiative lies with farmers who call on extension for a purpose which is determined by them. In the case of promotional approach the initiative lies with the extension agency where account may be taken of the views of farmers, but decisions on what to do and how to do it are made by the agency. The participative approach is a partnership between farmers and the extension agency, and the initiative is shared between them. Together the extension agency and farmers decide what technologies are important, what information is required and how it should be provided. Whatever the emphasis, extension work seeks to help farmers make sound decisions on technology by providing information and guidance about it in the effort to increase production to achieve food security.

From the definition and approaches of extension it can be seen that extension is the basis of modernizing agriculture for higher production for self-reliance in Southern Sudan. However, this will not happen with the current scarce budgetary resources to agriculture. Extension can be the basis of agricultural development in Southern Sudan when the budget of the agriculture sector is increased to 10 per cent in contrast to the current 1.6. Improving revenue collection is a solution to budgetary constraints. The 10 per cent increase of the agriculture budget will go a long way to ensure sustainable agriculture, hence self-reliance in production for food security and a high standard of living.

The Author is an Agricultural Extension Expert and a PhD in Food Security. He is a regular contributor to Sudan Tribune and can be reached at [email protected]