Aya Christine is a resident of IFUNE Boma in LOHILA village of Ikwoto Payam. She is one of the project beneficiary who received bean seeds from GASS and also received training on good agricultural practices and post-harvest handling for stable crops and perishable crops for sustainable and valuable marketing of produce.
Aya Christine is now empowered with farming knowledge and farming as a busines. According to her she is projected to earn 60000 to 130000 South Sudanese Pounds from her farming produce depending on the availability of rainfall, access to market and county situation in terms of political stability where her produce can reach to Ikwoto local market, Kapeota state, Torit and Uganda side. The income she wishes to pay school fee for 5 children in uganda, medical requirement, house rent and other valuable materials and she also stated that;
“My life has changed for better since I attended training on good production practicies and post-harvest handling management of produce both stable and perishable crops. It motivated me to involve in serious farming for all varities of seeds provided to farmers in K-logole. The support provide last year and today by GASS with support from Cordaid create hope for the community to farm and stop moving to Uganda in search of food, shelter and protection. I am very optimistic and sure to be able to meet my house hold requirements without the help of my husband and family members as I used to before when Iam a peasant farmer in Lohila village. My future plan is to look at farming as business and hope to procure oxen for next year land preparation as to increase production areas for various seeds. I would like to thank Cordaid and GASS so much for providing seeds for us after attending such an important trainings especially for us farmers who are entirely depend on farming as the only livelihood opportunity and source of employement. Such support should be extended to other community in Ikwoto County so that conflicts can be reduced which resulted from poverty and idleness ’’.“I also appeal to GASS and Cordaid to include more time for the training including functional literacy and numeracy training for adults to help us in sustainiability of small scale income generating activities through proper record keepingn ”.
Aya Christine notices some gaps which she appeal to GASS and Cordaid to focus on by enhancing the capacity of community from lack of sufficient technical and innovative knowledge resulting in low production efficiency, crop losses, non-sustainable production systems, lack of irrigation facilities and knowledge about it causing farmers to be unable to produce offseason. Lack of spot market arrangements and supply chain resulting in high transaction costs, which reduces or profit for farmers, Lack of access to appropriate financial services for farmers and traders, resulting in lack of working capital to invest in moving up into the chain or invest in farming, No data availability at Boma levels, making it difficult for policy makers and support organization like GASS and Cordaid to understand reality and take informed decisions. Lack of effective extension services to support the agriculture and implement regulations, hampers development of the sector as such she also proposed generic interventions likely to be developed markets for business services, including training on technical issues, marketing, IPM & organic training and business awareness training, making use of the existent supply of training by GASS, support the upgrading knowledge and skills of extension workers, and improving their means to reach the farmers, support the awareness raising about the role traders could play in disseminating knowledge, creating change and improving the value chain, supporting development of an effective system to provide market information to farmers and to traders, support the dissemination of innovative knowledge from government extension services, stimulate farmers to start organizing themselves in order to form farmer marketing groups what she also knows is that lack of storage and preservation facilities, forcing farmers to sell immediately their perishable produce, most (small scale) farmers still depend on rain fed farming and therefore are not able to produce the whole year around. High costs of farming inputs makes it hard for farmers to shift to high management practices, strong fluctuating prices that make it hard for farmers to decide when and to whom to sell and poor packaging and transportation results in high losses on the way, which costs are transferred to the farmers.
In the photo above, Aya Christine in her field crop for beans which was provided by GASS with support from Cordaid to scale up production for farming as a business as progressive farmer in Lohila Village. On the right hand side show bean field planted in rows while on the left the bean field planted through broadcasting so as to compare yields.
In the photos above, Aya Christine in her field crop for beans which was provided by GASS with support from Cordaid to scale up production for farming as a business as progressive farmer in Lohila Village. On the right hand side show bean field planted in rows while on the left the bean field planted through broadcasting so as to compare yields.