understanding land investment deals in africa - Oakland Institute

existing fields has peaked and that oil revenues willdecline by approximately 50 percent over the next fiveyears. 34 Since oil revenue will not be available to sustainfuture generations, the government must develop othereconomic sectors to compensate for the eventual lossof oil income. The RSS has focused on developing theagricultural sector as a way of diversifying the economyaway from oil.Food SecurityWith more than a third of its population moderately orseverely food insecure, South Sudan is among the mostfood insecure countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. TheFAO and WFP estimate that a significant proportionof South Sudan’s population—as high as 33 percentin the lean season—depends on food aid to ensure aminimum level of nutritional intake. 35 Due to the lowlevels of domestic food production, South Sudan reliesheavily on food imports from neighboring countries,which has implications for both local and regional foodsecurity. The high transport costs associated with foodimports from Uganda, Kenya, and Sudan, coupled withinflation caused by the large international presence,have caused food prices to skyrocket in South Sudan.The increase in food exports to South Sudan is alsopartly responsible for rising food prices in Uganda andKenya.Despite the high levels of food insecurity in SouthSudan, agricultural production has showed somemodest improvement in recent years. According tothe FAO, both yields and total cultivated area havebeen gradually increasing over time. In 2004, SouthSudan produced only 490,000 metric tons of cereals,constituting approximately 46 percent of the country’stotal cereal requirements. 36 By 2008, however, cerealproduction topped one million metric tons for the firsttime in the post-CPA period. Production dropped to541,000 metric tons in 2009, mostly due to high levelsof insecurity and extensive flooding across severalstates. It then rebounded to 695,000 metric tons in2010, falling short of domestic consumption needs by291,000 tons. 37While the statistics clearly demonstrate that domesticfood production in South Sudan is insufficient to satisfydemand, the fact that the country was nearly food selfsufficientin 2008 speaks to the productive capacity ofSouth Sudanese smallholder farmers. What is needednow is consistency: If private investment is properlychanneled to support smallholder farming through theprovision of agricultural inputs, technology transfers,and improved access to markets, it can help to levelout some of the year-to-year inconsistencies in thecountry’s agricultural productivity. The RSS Ministryof Agriculture has announced its goal of boosting foodproduction in South Sudan to two million metric tonsper year by 2013. 38 As discussed in Section 3 below,many governmental actors in South Sudan envisiona central role for industrial agriculture in achievingthis goal. By proceeding with these large-scaleagricultural investments in the absence of a properregulatory framework, however, the government risksundermining smallholder productivity in the process.Box 4. Smallholder Farming in SouthSudanAccounting for 80 percent of the country’s cereal production,smallholder farming dominates the agricultural sector in SouthSudan. Yet, smallholder farmers face a number of constraints,due to, among other things, high transport costs, unavailabilityof agricultural inputs, and underdeveloped agriculturalextension services. The central and state-level ministries ofagriculture have been operational since 2005, but they arechronically underfunded and unable to deliver meaningfulservices. Farmers must instead rely on support from isolatedpockets of input supply and agricultural extension throughdonor-funded emergency and humanitarian programs. 39Rather than investing resources into developing the kindof agricultural extension services that could help to spursmallholder production, many government institutionshave turned towards large-scale, private sector-led industrialagricultural schemes as an easy way to boost food production.According to Mamer Kuer Ajak, a South Sudanese smallholderwho has a farm in Jonglei State where he grows groundnuts,maize, and sorghum: “The government is speaking a corporatelanguage and is out of touch with communities.” 40In addition to the lack of government support, communitiesmust contend with vicious cycles of food insecurity andconflict. During the season when hunger is worst, roughlyfrom July to October, food prices rise and resource-basedconflicts begin to erupt among neighboring groups. Theconflict often affects people’s ability to plant and harvest ontime, reducing their productivity in subsequent seasons. Thefact that smallholder producers have managed to continue toproduce year-after-year under these circumstances speaks totheir resilience and adaptability.The Oakland Institute understanding land investment deals in africa: south sudan | 10