At least 2,660 farmers from five payams of Twic East County have started receiving food for assets in Twic East on Wednesday.
The World Food Programme (WFP)’s Food Assistance for Assets (FFA) initiative addresses immediate food needs through cash, voucher or food transfers, while at the same time it promotes the building or rehabilitation of assets that will improve long-term food security and resilience.
This comes two days after concerned farmers raised complaints through Mingkaman 100 FM after they stayed for six months without receiving any support despite the promise.
Norwegian Refugees Council offers 75kg of sorghum, 7.5l of oil, salt, and lentils to individuals registered for the one-time distribution.
Reuben Maker Ajhok – the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission coordinator for Twic East County – who spoke on behave of NRC, said the exercise is meant to motivate farmers to make agriculture a priority.
“These farmers cultivated rice and sorghum in all the payams. Each payam had 532 farmers to benefit from the initiative,” Maker explained. “Next year, it is going to be repeated so that many people cultivate to elevate the level of food security.”
Meanwhile, the RRC also said the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) will start distributing cash to 700 households among the returnees who never cultivated this year.
This assistance will go on for five months and commence this week will award each member of the household 23,000 SSP. This amount can be multiplied by the number of people in each household.
“The cash distribution is meant to support these families who have returned from Mingkaman, Mangalla and also from East Africa’s refugee camps to help them resettle,” Maker added.
Two-thirds of the population – over 7.7 million people – are facing crisis or worse levels of hunger, said WFP in August 2023. This is the highest number ever, surpassing that seen even at the height of the country’s civil war.
Reports attribute the food insecurity in South Sudan to several causes. Physical causes can be drought, flooding, soil erosion, plant disease or pests.
Human causes may include war, lack of infrastructure, lack of investment in irrigation or corruption. They suggest that the South Sudan crisis has been caused by a mixture of both human and physical factors.