South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Benjamin Takpiny
Sweet potatoes have performed wonders for families in Warrap state as they struggle relent amid harsh climatic conditions.
The climate resilient crop matures quickly, survives dry conditions, and has health benefits for consumers.
Sweet potato is a climate crisis tolerant crop variety that withstands drought and matures quickly.
Four villages surrounding Ajoong Boma have been supported by the World Food Program (WFP) to grow sweet potatoes.
WFP secured funding from the Foreign Commonwealth Development Office (FCDO).
Achuei Chan, a 40 -year -old mother of five from Ajoong Boma is grateful to WFP for transforming her life and improving her income through growing sweet potatoes.
“I usually sell my produce and take my children to school, I get 5000 to 10,000 South Sudanese Pounds a day depending on the market,” Chan told The Dawn on Thursday during a visit to her farm.
Chan says she also grows and sells vegetables.
“I want WFP to increase the budget they give us such that we expand our farms to generate more income and also feed our families,” she says.
Angok Atem, a mother of six says she ditched selling fire wood to grow potatoes, adding this has improved her fortunes.
“Last year I got good money from the harvest, this project is very good to me, it has really solved my problems. I am a widow and nobody is supporting me but since I joined this project everything changed,” Atem says.
She has enrolled four children in school using the daily income generated from selling sweet potatoes.
“In the past years my children used to sit at home due to lack of money but my four children are now in school,” Atem says with a smile.
Isaac Amule , the head of programme of WFP in Kuacjok says Warrap state has been facing a lot of climatic shocks such as flooding and spell of dry season.
“As WFP we realized these are the drivers of food insecurity in the country, we thought of how to mitigate some of these climatic shocks by introducing crops which are resilient to floods or dry spell,” he says.
Amule says 22,000 people in Twic County are beneficiaries of the projects they are implementing in the County.
“The ultimate goal is that we want to scale every household to be able to actually produce their food, next year we will be supporting close to 30, 000 beneficiaries in this part of the country,” he says.
10 feddans of sweet potato are managed by 10 households that are expected to harvest over 800 bags of 50kgs.
WFP plans to expand the project to other parts of Warrap State and South Sudan facing harsh climatic conditions.
