Twic East calls on humanitarian agencies to channel their supports to agriculture

April 22, 2016 (BOR) – The commissioner of Twic East county in the successor new Jonglei state has requested humanitarian agencies working in the county to support food production this rainy season.

Speaking to Sudan Tribune in Bor on Friday, the commissioner of Twic East county, Dau Akoi, said his office had placed request to all organizations operating in the county to channel their food resources to support agriculture in the county.

Catholic Relief Service (CRS) is one of the leading agencies operating in the Twic East, supporting resilience and recovery projects, including agriculture, feeder roads opening and leveling and dykes’ rehabilitation.

Oxfam, Cordaid, LWF and CMD are also supporting agriculture with tools and seeds alongside CRS but in different payams according to the commissioner.

“The roads and dykes should be suspended specially by CRS, and all the food resources have to be used to support people in agriculture so that everyone embarks on food production,” said Akoi.

According to the commissioner, hundreds of returnees would be food insecure this year, saying the remedy would be intensifying food production by encouraging everyone to have a farm of at least two fedans (140m by 120m) in size.

“For this reason, the county has recently announced a new local order that requires everyone to embark on agriculture, no more playing under trees. In the order, we need everyone to have at least two fedans around their homesteads. If rains become stable this year, they would have good harvest by the October or November this year,” the commissioner further explained.

But insecurity, he said, is still a challenge due to continued reports of influx of suspected Murle raiders into their territory.

The county has suffered from abductions and cattle raids in which 8 people were killed, and more than 500 heads of cattle and over 300 goats and sheep had been looted between January and April this year.

(ST)