expanding agriculture and food security activities in ... - part - usaid

3. Approaches:
• Market-led production. While many of the selected crops are currently for own consumption, it is
critical that productivity increases will be competitive in end markets. The initial target markets
may be local (town) or Juba, but many commodities have the potential for eventual export to
neighboring countries. The initial objectives should be to increase productivity, and meet the
quality demanded by the Sudanese markets. In the future, work would need to focus on meeting
African regional standards in order to export within the region.
• Promote, develop and support businesses all through the selected value chains in order to achieve
sustainability. Identify and build on incentives for private service providers to become involved in
agriculture.
• Use innovative business models to identify incentives for actors along the value chain to improve
their performance and to link to other actors (e.g., provide services to non-traditional clients) in
the value chain to enhance sustainability.
• Women’s participation. This project will work with both men and women. But it puts a particular
emphasis on ensuring that women have equitable access to project benefits – training, finance,
marketing, technologies, etc. because of the important role they play in agricultural and marketing
systems.
• Youth will soon dominate the demographics of the population. Most lack the interest and skills in
farming. There is a need to remove the stigma of farming as dirty work, and to demonstrate the
profitability of farming as a business. School age children should be a prime target for exposure
to agriculture.
• Partnership approach at all levels during project design, planning, implementation, monitoring
and evaluation. This is particularly important at the local and community levels.
• Implementation at the County level. GOSS priority is for focusing on implementation and
capacity building at State, County and lower levels.
• Producer organizations will be used as the entry point for reaching large numbers of farmers.
There are many organizations already in existence – as associations, self help groups,
cooperatives. The project will aim to increase groups’ abilities to understand farming as a
business, including how to be competitive in markets (input and output). Literacy and numeracy
training will likely be required.
• Judicious use of grants/soft loans: Time-bound small grants, soft loans or starter packs may be
necessary to share risk and to kick start activities that will in time become fully commercial.
These subsidies should be provided before or after the point of actual commercial transaction to
the extent possible to limit market distortions. It is imperative that the exit strategy is clearly
developed prior to implementing these non-sustainable interventions.
• Public private partnerships, including larger scale commercial investments/contract farming,
information dissemination technologies, market infrastructure development.
• Feeder roads. Prioritize critical points along roads linking surplus areas to large markets. The
project will link to other organizations rehabilitating roads such as USAID and WFP.
• Program flexibility to take advantage of emerging opportunities or discontinue non-performant
approaches/interventions.
B. Illustrative Expected Results
Strategic Objective: Increase Food Production in Targeted Areas of Southern Sudan
By the end of the project, it is expected that smallholders will have increased their productivity in the
selected commodities, and that production levels have increased beyond household consumption needs.
Surpluses are marketed in local and Juba markets.
EXPANDING AGRICULTURE AND FOOD SECURITY ACTIVITIES IN SOUTHERN SUDAN 27