Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) cultivated 50 fedans of maize to boost food security.
These were part of the force initially sent to the DRC on December 20, 2022 for a regional peace keeping mission.
The forces were stranded on the border with the DRC, in what the government termed as logistical challenges.
Speaking at army headquarters in Yambio County on Friday, in Western Equatoria State, the head of the mission, Col. Malual Johnson, said after receiving an order not to proceed with their mission to Eastern Congo, they decided to embark on farming to produce more food to feed the local community living around.
“We arrived in Western Equatoria State on June 11, 2022, and up to now we are staying peacefully with the entire population after our mission [to DR Congo] was postponed… “We thought of how we could live,” he said.
“We decided to cultivate some crops, and this was the first step taken to plant this maize. Our cultivation started last March, and now we have reached 50 feddans of maize and some other vegetable crops,” Col. Malual said.
“We convinced our soldiers that what we can do with our own hands [because this is] what can promote our living standards as soldiers, so we cannot always depend on the logistics, but we can add our energy to produce our local products in our land.”
He appealed to the government to provide them with tractors for next year so that they could do more.
Meanwhile, the state minister of agriculture, Alison Barnaba, added that the common enemy of the country is hunger, which needs collective responsibility to fight.
Barnaba revealed that commandos in Nzara and Ibba counties have also done the same, which shows the SSPDF as a progressive army.
The Deputy Governor of Western Equatoria State, Dr. Kennedy Gaaniko, lauded President Salva Kiir for ending the conflict, which he said had enabled the SSPDF to embark on agriculture.
“Without peace, there would have been no farming in Gangura Payam of Yambio County.”
Dr. Gaaniko hailed the SSPDF Regional Forces for being very cooperative with the local people of Gangura village.
“This is the first time I have heard from the community—youth, elderly people, and women—that they are being protected by the soldiers,” he said.
He encouraged the SSPDF to extend the same spirit to all parts of South Sudan, wherever they are deployed.
“Agriculture was the mission of our late hero, Dr. John Garang, to engage South Sudanese in agriculture because the 2 percent of petroleum cannot develop this country apart from agriculture,” he said.
“As state government, we are going to endorse this into our programme where every organised force must have a farm,” he said.
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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