Machar urges local populations to intensify farming in South Sudan
June 3, 2012 (LEER) – South Sudan’s Vice President, Riek Machar, has urged local populations to intensify farming beginning this year in response to the gap created by the shutdown of the oil production which used to provide 98% of budget for the new country.
The region since 2005 has been feeding its populations mostly from imported basic food commodities from the neighboring countries including Sudan using the revenues from the oil production.
South Sudanese officials say they were forced to shut down the oil production because Khartoum confiscated the oil passing through its pipelines to Port Sudan. Khartoum say it acted due to lack of agreement on transit fees and delay of payment of such fees by South Sudan.
The government has recently introduced austerity measures which cut down expenditure and have affected budgets of productive institutions including the ministry of agriculture.
Speaking to the local chiefs during his Saturday visit to his home county of Leer in Unity state, Machar, told the chiefs to urge their respective populations to intensify farming during this farming season.
He also encouraged them to form into groups of cooperative societies or business partners, explaining that a group of people with financial capacity can buy a tractor to expedite farming.
The region, he said, should not depend on food imports while it is endowed with arable land.
He told them that local farmers who would produce food surplus would sell off such surplus to the government or to other business people.
South Sudanese states located on the northern part of the country import their food from neighbouring Sudanese towns. But Khartoum imposed since last year an embargo preventing trade with the newly independent state which accused of supporting rebels in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
(ST)