File: farmers sort their grains in Yambio | Credit | Gabriela Vivacqua/WFP

A group of farmers and civil society organizations have appealed to the government of South Sudan to allocate 10 percent of the national budget to the agriculture sector in the next fiscal year.

Since 2005, agriculture was severely neglected despite the huge agricultural potential South Sudan has.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, only about 5 percent of South Sudan is cultivated due to the civil war that started in 2013, and inadequate investment in the agriculture sector.

Yet the country is among African countries that signed the African Union Declaration of Malabo in 2014 (formerly Maputo Declaration of 2003), committing itself to develop the agriculture sector.

The Declaration tasked all African states to allocate at least 10 percent of their annual national budget to develop the sector.

Among other goals, the Declaration also set a milestone of reducing poverty by half, by 2025 through inclusive agricultural growth and transformation in the African continent.

However, in an open letter dated July 6 addressed to President Salva Kiir,  farmers in the country through their umbrella group — South Sudan Agricultural Producers’ Union blamed the government for not having made meaningful progress on any of the commitments.

They argue that the government has deprived the agriculture sector for years, allocating to all line ministries only 1% of the national budget in the last three financial years.

The line ministries are Agriculture and Food Security, Livestock and Fisheries, and Environment and Forestry.

“On the 2nd Biennal Review Report on the implementation of Malabo Declarations held in Addis Ababa in February 2020, South Sudan was not on track in achieving progress on any of the thematic areas under Malabo Declarations,” the farmers said in the letter.

“We appeal to your high office to take a proactive role in providing oversight to the South Sudan Agriculture Investment Plan and to ensure that the next Malabo Biennal Review Report and results are seriously discussed and appropriate joint action is taken,” they added.

Early this year, UN agencies and the government warned that 6.5 million of the population was facing severe hunger.

The farmers believe the number of people facing severe hunger has increased due to the crisis imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic.