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Let’s Promotes Agriculture Productivity Through Rural Extension Services in South Sudan

3 min read

By Emmanuel Malual Makuach, Nairobi, Kenya

February 19, 2016 (SSB)  —  Rural Agricultural Extension Service involves deliberate use of communication of information to help people from rural area make good decisions concerning farming activities. Extension is a service or system which assists farmer through educational procedures in improving farming methods and techniques, increasing production efficiency and income, which enhances level of living and have positive impact in lifting social and educational standards of the whole country.

South Sudan agriculture has been facing a lot of challenges since the struggle of independent south Sudan but Southern Sudanese resides in rural area and  about a million of South Sudanese lives below the poverty line of Southern Sudanese depend on crop farming or animal husbandry as their primary source of livelihood These statistics say a lot about the need for smart public policy discussion, and this paper seek to offer one major public policy that have potential to have huge impact on ordinary Southern Sudanese’ lives.  In this article I discusses that Rural Extension Service offers the best pathway for increasing and maintaining long-term agricultural productivity in South Sudan.

If the country south Sudan wants to increases productivity in agriculture, investment in Rural Extension Services offers the best sustainable solution for agricultural productivity.  Agriculture services have been reported to have substantial returns on agricultural productivity in different countries throughout the world especially in our neighboring countries like Uganda .Kenya. Model that had worked and should works for South Sudan. There are no unique paths for South Sudan which is now helping south Sudan in food   we should to move from an agriculture-based to an urbanized and into high-income countries without increasing agriculture productivity. Given the high youths unemployment in South Sudan, investment in agricultural sector will stimulates rural development and generates employment opportunities for the urban people as well, and most of all, it will increase a sustainable food production in south Sudan.

South Sudan has great potential for expanding and developing the agricultural sector.  The country is well endowed with the basic agriculture essentials; about 90 percent of the land is arable land and the longest river, the Nile, goes through the heart of South Sudan. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2012), the first-order impact for Rural Extension Service is the obvious increases in agriculture productivity, which benefits urban dwellers as well as rural populations. Increases in agricultural productivity benefit the poor directly through increases in production and also benefits the urban dwellers through reduction in food prices. That is, rural poor will expand their production process and productivity gains will induce lower food prices, which are direct benefits to the poor populations. Rural Extension Services improves production for small farmers due to better access to information and farming techniques that would be generated by the Rural Extension Services. The first increase in agricultural sector

Adopting successful foreign technology and this can be achieves better through Rural Extension Service. Lack of agricultural productivity in Africa is connected to the difficulties of importing technology “off-the-shelf and localizing it for local conditions and South Sudan can learn from past mistakes (the advantage of leaning form other countries’ mistakes), we should adopt a proactive approach to development.

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