[{"bbox": [97, 152, 1135, 206], "category": "Text", "text": "updating. The state level agricultural institutions also face serious budgetary constraints and officials have no mobility means to interface and interact with smallholder farmers, including provision of extension services."}, {"bbox": [97, 231, 1135, 418], "category": "Text", "text": "Like many countries in the region, South Sudan continues to face increased vulnerability due to climate change. Flooding and dry season dry spells now pose a real threat to the country's food and nutrition security situation. Both crops and livestock continue to be lost due to extreme flood events, whilst thousands of people (including smallholder farmers) are often displaced: there are 2 million IDPs, whereas the floods in 2021 and 2022 affected more than 1 million persons. The rain seasons are no longer predictable and often, the rains start late and the seasons are punctuated with prolonged dry spells, which affects productivity. Poor infrastructure, including access roads and market facilities also hinder connectivity which is vital for market access."}, {"bbox": [97, 443, 1135, 631], "category": "Text", "text": "**Conflict and insecurity** at the sub-national levels remain a key driver of food insecurity in the country. In some locations farmers cannot access their farms due to insecurity, whilst whole communities often face displacement due to attack by armed militias or cattle raiders. The hyper-inflationary environment of South Sudan (often linked to low forex reserves), developments at the global level (including the COVID-19 epidemic and Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine) have also contributed to the food insecurity and humanitarian crises. The over-reliance on food imports due to limited local production has compounded the situation, making food expensive locally and inaccessible to the majority of the vulnerable populations."}, {"bbox": [97, 656, 1135, 869], "category": "Text", "text": "**Low production and productivity** in the country's food system is driven by several factors. For instance access to quality seeds and livestock breeds remains a challenge for the rural agro-pastoralists and smallholder farmers. South Sudan does not have a seed certification system and relies on seed imports, a majority of which are not genuine seeds. There is overstocking in the livestock sector and often the breeds are of poor quality due to inbreeding, lack of adequate water and pasture during dry season continues to be a major challenge. The natural production base (including soil, forests, and biodiversity) continue to face increasing threats due to land degradation, deforestation, soil erosion, and the degradation destruction of natural ecosystems. There is no access to chemical fertilizers to boost soil fertility and the same is also true for pest and diseases control chemicals."}, {"bbox": [97, 894, 1135, 1081], "category": "Text", "text": "With no Government funding, smallholder farmers do not receive any **extension support**. Extension services are only available through donor and NGO efforts, and this is however limited due to the scale of the needs and more importantly, not sustainable. Access to farming tools is also a challenge and farmers often use traditional and basic equipment which make it laborious (and often outright impossible) to expand area under cultivation. Consequently, yields in South Sudan remain much lower than regional averages. For instance, average sorghum yield in the country stands at 0.5t/ha whilst in Kenya the figure is 2.25t/ha. Further postharvest losses remain high and often account for 40% of harvested crops in South Sudan."}, {"bbox": [97, 1106, 1135, 1320], "category": "Text", "text": "**Vegetables** are an important part of South Sudanese diet and, more importantly, a potential source of income and livelihoods. Their short maturity, quick ground cover, relative high productivity, and adaptation to more marginal soil conditions allow farmers significant flexibility in how they incorporate the crop into their farming system. The horticulture sector is largely dominated by women smallholder farmers and offer opportunities as a source of nutrition and quick returns on investment with a good profit margin. The biggest challenge to the value chain is the lack of transportation that can get the highly perishable product to local markets in a timely manner, and this is made worse by lack of connectivity and accessible roads (only 2% of roads are paved and 60% become impassable during rainy season)."}, {"bbox": [97, 1345, 1135, 1422], "category": "Text", "text": "Despite the **changing climate**, smallholder farmers in South Sudan have been slow in adopting climate sensitive farming systems. There is also a huge preference for sorghum - the staple crop, as opposed to flood tolerant crops like rice."}, {"bbox": [97, 1449, 1135, 1637], "category": "Text", "text": "In addition to challenges within the country's food system, rural communities in the country have **limited livelihood opportunities**. Overall unemployment is high and youth are particularly affected. For instance, and officially, youth unemployment rate is estimated at 50% at national level but this could be even much higher, especially for the rural youth. Youth unemployment is exacerbated by low levels of education, limited skills, and a weak economy. Limited skills and exceptionally high levels of illiteracy have hindered the development of entrepreneurship mind-sets, especially in rural communities. Financial exclusion has also worsened the situation, as most of the rural vulnerable people are unbanked and have no access to finance or capital to start and grow their"}, {"bbox": [1027, 1680, 1144, 1705], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 11 of 39"}]