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Caritas South Sudan Farming Skills Training to Improve “local food security”: Beneficiary

Local farmers in Yei County in South Sudan. Credit: Caritas South Sudan

The training that Caritas South Sudan realized for a group of farmers in Yei River County of Central Equatoria State last month will contribute to increased productivity and improved “local food security”, a beneficiary of the May 24 training has said. 

In an exclusive interview with ACI Africa on Thursday, June 1, Ezekiel Malish, one of the beneficiaries of the training that brought together 47 lead farmers in the South Sudanese County, appealed for more capacity building opportunities.

“I am very much grateful for the training from Caritas South Sudan because most of us don’t have the basic skills required to effectively manage livelihood activities to generate adequate income,” Mr. Malish said.

The 45-year-old resident of Hai Leben in Yei town said the training “will help us increase productivity which would significantly improve our local food security.

“We need more effective learning to increase production, and improved outputs from our harvest,” he further said, and explained, “We are cultivating many things in our villages but managing the output to generate income is very difficult.”

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Mr. Malish also said that farmers in Yei River County look forward to having modern methods of farming, which he said would empower the farmers to increase yields.

Also speaking to ACI Africa about the workshop on farming skills that the development and humanitarian arm of the Catholic Bishops in South Sudan organized, Christine Zekira said, “We are very happy because the training will help us adopt modern skills in agronomic practices to increase livelihood production in our community.”

Ms. Zekira echoed the sentiments Mr. Malish about the economic impact of the acquired skills, saying the training “will also improve farmers’ livelihood, create unity, and share agriculture ideas among our different groups of farmers to earn more income.”

The 35-year-old farmer who heads the farming group in Otogo Payam in Yei appealed to Caritas South Sudan to continue organizing trainings for farmers in the remote areas “to acquire knowledge on modern farming.”

On his part, Kenyi Loro who also participated in the training lauded the Caritas South Sudan initiative as “important for farmers to learn how to capably manage the health of the land, effectively cultivate and increase harvests.”

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“It will build our skills in farm management because we have learned how to better manage both the business and agricultural aspects of the farms,” Mr. Loro told ACI Africa during the June 1 interview. 

The South Sudanese farmer who has a dozen farmers in the group he leads appealed to Caritas South Sudan to continue empowering farmers because “we will earn more income because of a good harvest through proper management of the farm.”

Patrick Juma contributed to the writing of this story.

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