By Kei Emmanuel Duku
In South Sudan, absence of agricultural research centers has significantly hindered efforts to combat pest and disease infestations.
With 80% of the rural population relying on agriculture, the country encounters numerous challenges stemming from the lack of specialized research facilities.
Without a research centre, farmers countrywide lack access to advanced solutions and technologies that could help manage pest and disease outbreaks effectively.
The absence of such a facility means that there is no centralized hub for developing and testing new pest management strategies or for researching local pest dynamics.
This gap results in a reliance on outdated methods and a lack of innovation in addressing agricultural challenges.
Taban Elizara Joseph a farmer said normally pests and diseases attack his 3 hectares of vegetables along the shore of the Nile North of Juba City in the middle of the season either at the growth stage or at the maturity stage.
He said the pest and disease attacks are severe between May and August in the 9-12 days of crop growing and at the harvesting stage a period he described as the “Solar Moon” of pest and disease infestation.
Elizara said in 2019, he suffered losses from American and Indonesian flies that attacked his cucumber garden and Paupi and Ngui, affecting Okra.
He stresses that the impact of the attack is severe, resulting in a reduction in harvest and loss of farmer’s income and food insecurity.
He recalled that in 2019/2020, farmers in the Greater Equatoria Belt suffered a significant loss resulting from the infestation of locusts and fall armyworms that destroyed farmlands, as this happened, farmers are often left with outdated methods, limited knowledge, and access to information.
He noted that the absence of this Agricultural Research Centre, and the lack of trained agricultural extension officers has a ripple effect.
Without the centres, farmers are normally left to rely on outdated and often ineffective methods of pest and disease management which situation has been exacerbated by poor road networks across the country.
“Inadequate awareness about the pest and disease control measures, also there is a problem of agrochemicals that are used to control the pest and disease, majority of the farmers are situated in the rural areas and farmers can’t have time to travel up to urban centers to buy pesticides and insecticides to spray their crops, if you managed, by the time go back your farmland would have been destroyed, it is even worse with the current insecurity in the country,” Elizara said.
He further noted that to avoid attacks from pests and diseases like the fall armyworms he practiced crop rotation, early land preparation, earl, and late planting of crops past the “Solar Moon” period.
He added that without a dedicated research center, they were fighting a lost battle. Elizara longed for the day when South Sudan would have a Centre where scientists could develop pest and disease-resistant crops, a place that would empower them to feed their families and build a more secure future.
“The agriculture research center will contribute a lot in terms of analyzing the behaviors of pests, how they are related to the climate, and how they relate to the crops, how researchers can develop crops that resist attacks from pests and diseases, and it is through these centers that framers can have access to information” Elizara added.
Aenea Vickey, a farmer from Magwi County of Eastern Equatoria State on the border with Uganda stated that in 2019, desert locusts carried by wind from either Uganda or Kenya attacked her garden and destroyed her sorghum and green vegetation and the neighbor’s farmland.
Vickey said then, she and other framers joined a local farmers’ cooperative in the county where they are now learning about new, more sustainable farming techniques and exploring ways to combat these pests, like using pesticides and insecticides.
She further added that currently, farmers in the county are engaging in cross-border information-sharing with farmers in neighboring countries to share information about pest outbreaks and coordinate control efforts.
“The only support we receive is from the local organizations, however, since the outbreak of locust, we have learned lessons. Framers in Magwi County freely share information with counterparts from Uganda and learn new techniques on integrated pest management, crop diversification, and early warning systems,” Vickey said.
Dr. Meta Francis Justine, a freelance Consultant at Deliver Consults, South Sudan noted that apart from climate change-induced factors where migratory pest and diseases or Transboundary pests follows the pattern of the climate within the region, pests and diseases can be imported through crops that are infected.
He said in the past farmers in the country have ever suffered pre-harvest losses from climate-induced pests like the fall armyworms that mainly attack maize and sorghum.
The consultant advises framers that in the absence of limited financial resources to buy and inadequate knowledge in handling and management of agrochemicals, framers should use local pesticides made manufactured from NEMA leaves or local ash to spray on crops.
“Most farmers are not trained in these safety measures. So, it’s far better for them to use the local pesticides or the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security together with its development partners have to build the capacities of farmers on how to safely and effectively use these pesticides,” Francis said.
He added that pests and disease can reduce yield by up to 40-50%, something he says if pests and diseases attack smallholder farmers can wipe the entire farmland, posing a major threat to food security.
Kiden Scoiva, a South Sudanese Refugee working for a local Organization in Obongi District-Uganda as an Agricultural Extension officer, underscored the importance of the research center, saying it helps in a chemical formulation based on behaviors of certain pests and diseases, study the behaviors of pests and disease and how they are related to certain climatic conditions.
Sociva added that research centers also help in cross-breeding, where researchers come up with drought-resistant varieties where farmers can be able to get crop varieties that are resistant to pests, diseases, or drought and floods.
“Through the breeders, Researchers come up with a crop variety that is resistant to disease, we have these centers definitely will come up with those varieties that can are resistant to transboundary diseases” Sociva stated.
She attributed the recent attacks from desert locusts and fall armyworms in South Sudan to similar climatic conditions that South Sudan has to the countries within the Horn of Africa.
The extension officer said in Uganda, the fall armyworms greatly affected the Northern and West Nile regions in Uganda, which shares a border with Magwi, Greater Kapoeta, and Kajo-Kijo counties bordering South Sudan.
She identified some of the common diseases farmers in the region suffer as Sorghum SUMT, Maize bore, and cassava Mascio among others.