Juba, 30 July, 2021 / 7:00 pm (ACI Africa).
The leadership of the development and humanitarian arm of the Catholic Bishops in South Sudan, Caritas South Sudan, has provided a variety of seeds to at least 3,000 households in the East-Central African nation and plans to train beneficiaries of the initiative on subsistent farming.
“In light of COVID-19, this project was designed to address issues of COVID-19 because under COVID-19 many households lost their livelihoods especially in terms of earnings,” the Humanitarian Coordinator of Caritas South Sudan, Joseph Pasquale, said Tuesday, July 27.
The Caritas official who was speaking to journalists in Juba on the sidelines of the seed-distribution exercise added that the initiative aims “to address issues related to livelihoods whereby families don’t need big farms because they are in an urban setup.”
The families that received tomatoes, okra, onion seeds and hoes, rakes, among other tools are to be trained in subsistent farming, Mr. Pasquale said, adding, “We have what we call demonstration farms and we train people on how to grow the vegetables they have just received."
He further said in reference to the beneficiaries of the initiative, "In the next few days, we are going to start training them in the demonstration plot and so they will be part and parcel of the training.”
