By Agele Benson Amos
It is a story of a farming community in dilemma. First, their markets were destroyed by the civil war forcing them to withdraw from cash crop production, such as growing coffee. Now, having switched to food crops, farmers are producing bumper maize and other food crop harvests but, due to lack of storage facilities and poor roads their efforts seem fruitless.
Today, smiles among farmers in Yei River Payam are hard to come by because they have nothing to celebrate about their difficult decision of quitting coffee and tobacco farming for maize and other food crop production.
Their bumper food crop harvests are not only going to waste but also, they have nothing to show from their struggle and efforts. They say that their crops are either rotting due to the inability to get them to market because of the poor road network or have been destroyed by weevils due to lack of modern storage facilities.
52 year old Emmanuel Ludoru Zakayo is a farmer in Morsak in Otogo Payam River County, who was engaged in coffee farming for more than two decades. “Though the coffee used to take three years before harvest I had the morale for producing it because there was a market for it. Maize does well and harvests are good but there isn’t enough support from those concerned to help us in the entire production process” said Zakayo.
After the civil war Emmanuel turned his attention to growing food crops such as maize, cassava, beans and groundnuts among others. “I resorted to food crops after the war because it doesn’t take many years to mature. They helped us to fight hunger and to pay school fees”, he said.
Much as Emmanuel involved himself in food crop farming to feed his family and educate his children, he regrets that most of his produce goes to waste because of poor roads and lack of means of transport from his farm to Yei town located some fourteen miles away, and low market prices.
Emmanuel also attributed the falling fortunes in farming in the region to lack of capacity building for farmers on modern farming and storage techniques. “I really want to improve on my farming methods but, due to lack of any basic farming knowledge, I find it difficult to catch up with the modern farming methods”, Zachayo lamented further.
He accused the government of doing little to support farmers and urged them to help through provision of free seeds and agricultural implements.
The situation has now compelled most farmers to return to traditional seed preservation methods such as smoking and open sun drying methods. This has compromised the quality of the seeds used by farmers. “I have been using local seeds that I smoked and stored in my house to keep away the weevils but the seeds were not the best quality,” Zachayo added.
But despite these challenges, Emmanuel has continued urging his fellow farmers not to quit farming, especially food crop production, as it assured them of food security. “When we fail to produce more food, we shall for ever depend on expensive imports and many of us will go hungry,” he said.
Joseph Mawa Malembe of Kanyara village in Morobo County who was previously engaged in coffee production but, has now shifted attention to potatoe and maize production, said people should consider food crop production as the first priority instead of cash crops. “I must have enough food in my house before thinking of growing cash crops like coffee that takes three years to harvest”, he advised.
“Because of poor roads and bridges I have been using my old bicycle to transport my crops to the market and it is very tiresome,” he said. Joseph also complained about low prices in the local market.
Like Emmanuel and Joseph, Oliver Abayi John is a farmer, in his forties, in Panyume area Panyume Payam in Morobo County, who also used to be involved in growing coffee. He appealed to the local Non-Governmental Organizations like Action Africa Help (AAH), GTZ, and the government to consider repairing the local roads to help solve the market accessibility problems faced by farmers.
