South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Simon Deng
The Governor of Eastern Equatoria State, Louis Lobong Lojore, has encouraged farmers to increase food production across the State in order to alleviate poverty and boost food security.
“Actually, for Eastern Equatoria and maybe for the whole country, we are implementing and continuing to disseminate the message of his Excellency, the president, where in precise we should embrace peace and in precise the issue of us embarking into agriculture to improve our economy,” he told The Dawn in an interview on Sunday.
Lojore revealed that he has been touring Eastern Equatoria State during the festive season, while delivering the message on increasing agricultural production.
“We are going to continue to educate the people and for us in Eastern Equatoria, I have talked to my political leaders, particularly the cabinet and the MPs, the county commissioners that let us do by example, each one of us must have a farm,” said Lojore.
He disclosed that the State has experienced peaceful calm throughout the entire festive season, adding that the population celebrated the festive season without any insecurity.
Lojore revealed that 12 criminals who had been involved robbery along the highways have surrendered and apologized to the government, adding that some of them will be trained to support the police in community policing.
“The security situation has improved very greatly in the area of Magwi, many people have come and they have been resettled in their own villages and we are expecting that by this year, they will start clearing their farms and produce food for themselves,” he said.
Lojore noted that food harvest in 2024 was poor, adding that the situation has forced the vast majority of the population to rely on relief assistance.
“We are talking to all the communities in all the towns in Eastern Equatoria to allow those who are in the towns to go and cultivate, land must be free for everybody to cultivate,” he said.
Lojore added that farmers must plant variety of crops including drought resistant crops in areas subjected to dry spell and water resistant crops in areas such as Lafon which have been heavily flooded.
“We need the people right now to come up with concrete strategies on how to produce food, the food insecurity is very bad because crops were destroyed by drought and in Lafon there was flooding,” he said.