According to a World Food Program report published in June, 60% of South Sudan’s population –7.2 million people– faced food insecurity in the second quarter of 2021. South Sudan Chamber of Commerce Chairperson Laku Lukang has stated that the nation remains dependent on other countries for 80% of its food supply.
“Most of the food items such as tomatoes and cabbage come from Uganda. Since independence we don’t have factories and industries for producing cooking oil, sugar,” Lukang told VOA’s South Sudan in Focus.
Subsistence farmer Rose Nyoka: “When we go to the bush to farm, we are arrested and chased out. What we want is let the government open its eyes on us, the farmers, because we are depending on our farming for our livelihoods and now if we don’t cultivate, we are forced to buy food items from outside the country.”
Another significant factor in South Sudan’s food insecurity is the 2013 to 2018 conflict between South Sudanese political forces and its continued fallout. “We have virgin land with productive soil and the products brought from Uganda can be produced here at a cheaper cost but the war stopped this,” said Faustine Amba, Yei-based NGO Mugwo Development Organization program manager.
Amba said the lack of agricultural production denies the government much-needed internal tax revenue. “The government needs money through taxes from the people but if the common men are poor and hungry, the government can also be poor and hungry in terms of resources,” he said.