By James Innocent
Organic Farming Advisory Organization well known as FAO has distributed seeds and farm tools to more than one thousand beneficiaries (farmers) in Lainya and Yei River Counties of Central Equatoria State to boost production.
Safari Emmanuel working for Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) said this month they have distribution for farmers groups in Lainya and Yei River counties from the Payams of Mukaya, Kupera and Mugwo respectively.
“This month we had a distribution activity in the counties of Lainya and Yei River so under Lainya, we targeted two Payams that is Kupera payam and Mukaya payam and in Kupera payam, we took all the three bomas that is Mundu boma, Korobe and Kupera at large as a Boma,” he said.
Safari commended that after meeting the payam admistrator they were allowed to take only one thousand beneficiaries while they targeted one thousand five hundred beneficiaries,
“For our assessment in Lainya, we met the payam director for Lainya County and he was very honest to by allowing us to take one thousand beneficiaries because Lainya has less population but our target in Lainya is one thousand five hundred but because the Payam director was honest he advised us to at least take the rest of the targeted beneficiaries to Yei River County which is two thousand beneficiaries,” he noted.
He stated that the items distributed were farming tools and seeds of maize, onions chukuma and green papers.
“So the items that we distributed are tools and seeds cereals like maize, onions, green papers, chukuma, hoes and egg plants as a target for households as items that they have for the beneficiaries,” he pointed.
Safari cited that there have been a lot of challenges facing people in Lainya County were farmers get it difficult for them to do farming activities because of the cattle keepers roaming in the farmlands.
“They only practice agriculture near their homes resulting into small farming scales which has not really covered their support for the seeds we give like five kilograms with the expectation of cultivation of large farms and the other thing affecting us in Yei County is also the road from Ligi which has really made transportation of seeds and tools to some other areas problematic,” Safari underlined.
One of the beneficiaries, Kenyi Stephen stated that the market is not all stable and they lack more extension services.
“The market is not stable because you might go to the market with all your items to the market you find that there is no specific buyer in the market and we also face challenges of extension workers,” he stressed.
Kenyi pointed out that one of the problem facing them during farming is the insecurity, appealing that if the security is well improved they will produce more food in the community.
He advised farmers to do assessment before carrying out any farm activities adding that goats and other stray animals should not be grazed near farming areas to avoid destruction of crops.