Agriculture

Displaced Tastes is a research project run by the Rift Valley Institute in partnership with the Catholic University of South Sudan under the X-Border Local Research Network. The project examines the changing tastes for food in South Sudan in the context of the country’s economic transition and place in the regional, cross-border economy of grain. In this piece, Elizabeth Nyibol describes the lifestory of her aunt, Mary Ajok Wetkwuot, who throughout her life has demonstrated a commitment to growing the indigenous grains of her Dinka community—varieties of sorghum and millet—which she carried with her while living much of her life in displacement. The account shows how Mary, like many other Dinka women, deployed the social and material capital of seeds under her control to manage the wider transitions experienced during South Sudan’s decades of war.

This briefing is a product of the X-Border Local Research Network, a component of DFID’s Cross- Border Conflict—Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) programme, funded by UKaid from the UK government. The programme carries out research work to better understand the causes and impacts of conflict in border areas and their international dimensions. It supports more effective policymaking and development programming and builds the skills of local partners

The bulletin provides the latest food price developments at world, regional and national level. It focuses on countries where prices are abnormally high, based on GIEWS analysis and the Indicator of Food Price Anomalies (IFPA) for SDG target 2.c.

With trade recognized as a means of implementation under Agenda 2030, policy-makers will need to ensure that trade, and policies affecting trade and markets, are taken into consideration as part of their efforts to achieve SDG 2. The five targets that set out the level and ambition of SDG 2 (ending hunger; ending all forms of malnutrition; doubling the agricultural productivity and incomes of small-scale food producers; ensuring sustainable food production systems; and maintaining genetic diversity), as well as trade itself, often constitute distinct policy priorities for governments. Trade and related policy measures that may be designed to achieve one target can potentially have unintended negative consequences that undermine the achievement of other targets, both within the country where the measure is applied and in the trading partner countries. It is therefore important that policy-makers identify and recognize areas in which difficult tradeoffs may be needed between competing policy objectives, and identify possible ways in which these can be addressed. Furthermore, while the different targets set out under SDG 2 are mutually interdependent and inter-related, it is important to address the trade policy dimension of each component individually as part of a broader plan of action.

Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, like much of South Sudan, is in a protracted state of social and economic crisis, rooted in generations of armed conflict, forced resettlements, and a shift towards a cash and market economy. Since the 1980s, family units and livelihoods have been destroyed, displaced or reworked by conflict and most people have been forced to engage in precarious work for survival. Many residents have been drawn into patterns of labour migration to Sudan, trade and markets in often dependent or exploitative relationships, which have built on much older histories of conscription and enslavement. Political-economic systems have developed that exploit these processes of commodification, labour exploitation and basic insecurity.

The report uses the concepts of stress, risk and precarity as a frame of reference for understanding the fragmented and contingent futures that people in the borderland are navigating. What choices and possibilities do people have for self-development? How are these opportunities controlled and manipulated, and by whom? Who is trapped into being simply resilient and who can seek opportunity and challenge the terms of this often coercive and dangerous economy?

As it was projected earlier in the year, while most markets were braced for a major global economic downturn, the food sector, including markets for bananas and tropical fruits, continued to display more resilience to the Covid-19 pandemic than other sectors.
This report provides supply and demand forecasts for basic foodstuffs, fish and fishery products along with price analysis, policy information and a preliminary assessment of the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on trade in bananas and tropical fruits. The report’s special feature reviews recent trends in food imports bills and export earnings.
Food Outlook is published by the Markets and Trade Division of FAO as part of the Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS). It is a biannual publication (November and June) focusing on developments in global food markets. Food Outlook maintains a close synergy with another major GIEWS publication, Crop Prospects and Food Situation, especially with regard to the coverage of cereals. Food Outlook is available in English. The summary section is also available in Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.

Over the past two decades, the rangelands of Eastern Africa have experienced sweeping changes associated with growing human populations, shifting land use, expanding livestock marketing and trade, and greater investment by domestic and global capital. These trends have coincided with several large shocks that were turning points for how rangeland inhabitants make a living. As livelihoods in the region’s rangelands transform in seemingly paradoxical directions, away from customary pastoralist production systems, greater insight is required of how these transformations might affect poverty and vulnerability. This article reviews the state of what is known regarding directions of livelihood change in the rangelands of Eastern Africa, drawing on case studies of structural change in five settings in the region. It considers the implications of long-term change, as well as the emergence of very different livelihood mixes in pastoral rangelands, for efforts to reduce poverty and vulnerability in these places.

The effects of climate change are expected to be greatest in the Horn of Africa countries, particularly those, such as South Sudan, whose populations are reliant on rain-fed agricultural production to meet their food and income needs. As one of the least developed countries in the world, South Sudan’s population is dependent on climate sensitive natural resources for their livelihoods, making the country particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. South Sudan’s future economy will be significantly influenced by climate change and the potential for socio-economic losses and damages due to climate change is one of the largest unknowns in the country’s future.

This CSRF briefing paper explores current climate context and trends in South Sudan, peers into the future of climate change and reflects on consequences of it on the economic and climate sensitive sectors in South Sudan. Lastly, the briefing paper suggests responses for policy and practice such as providing climate sensitive aid and supporting the Government of South Sudan to develop AND implement a national strategy for climate change adaptation and mitigation.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) developed these guidelines with the overall objective to protect and improve the productivity of the ruminant livestock species of South Sudan. Focussing on the best use of local feed resources, the guidelines mainly target livestock extension workers promoting livestock feed development good practices to pastoral and agropastoral communities as well as the emerging market-oriented smallholder livestock producers. This document also serves as an important tool for advancing the policy and strategic priority actions of the East Africa Animal Feed Action Plan (FAO and IGAD, 2019) and the draft National Livestock Development Policy of South Sudan.

An FAO/WFP Crop and Food Security Assessment Mission (CFSAM) visited South Sudan from 15 to 20 December 2019 to estimate the cereal production during 2019 and assess the overall food security situation in the country. The CFSAM reviewed the findings of several Crop Assessment Missions conducted from June to December 2019 at planting and harvest time in different agro-ecological zones of the country.

This report explores the important role chiefs’ courts play in food security and in addressing hunger in South Sudan by reallocating food to vulnerable community members. Their role is particularly important in view of famine and recurrent extreme food insecurity affecting South Sudan. The authors suggest that chief courts potentially offer useful data for famine early warning and responses but also underline that humanitarian actors engaging with chiefs’ courts should do so with a contextually informed and locally nuanced approach.