Africa-Press – South-Sudan. Farmers in Yei River County called on the State government to rehabilitate roads in order to allow farmers in Yei to access major markets when they transport their goods.
Speaking to Juba Monitor yesterday, The Acting Director of Agriculture, Dudu Emelia Kenyi said that farmers in Yei could not access major markets to transport their goods due to poor road network.
The continued displacement of farmers resulted to food shortage as many agriculturalists were displaced from their residential farming places to shelter in the town for their safety.
She called on the government to restore the roads to increase productivity and supply. The roads are not passable which makes it difficult for the farmers to transport their produce to far markets like Juba and other parts of the country.
Kenyi said that her message to the government and any willing persons was help renovate the roads so that produce could reach the far places where the farmers might get good
prices for their commodities. Farmers were being displaced from their original places of farming to areas where there was no enough space for cultivation like the IDPs at ECSS guest house.
Those who were real farmers were by then hosted as IDPs and had nowhere to cultivate. She said they anticipated that in the long run there should be shortage of food supply to their markets because the farmers did not cultivate much this year because of the displacements.
Kenyi added that she wondered why animals were roaming in the cultivation areas and called on livestock keepers and farmers to cooperate. The livestock owners to control their animals, especially during cultivation season to minimize conflicts related to pastoralists and agriculturalists. She explained that her office received a lot of complaints from farmers regarding the destruction of farmlands by uncontrolled animals.
“I call on the local government authority to take measures against animals’ owners who do not take into consideration proper management of their animals to avoid conflict. Along animal production or rearing, I found a lot of challenges farmers are facing though it is announced in the local radio stations and people are aware of how they can take care of their animals, but still there are some of them who are leaving their animals uncontrolled. Let them be serious in controlling these animals. Let animals’ herders and crop producers understand themselves. If it is time for crop production, owners of animals should control them seriously,” Kenyi added.
Yei River County had ever been known of producing enough food that supplies other parts of the country, but has dropped since the onset of the conflict in the area which reduced agricultural production due to displacement of farmers from the sites of farming.
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