Freedom from Want: The Fight for Economic Freedom in South Sudan
By Nhial Bol Aken, Juba, South Sudan
December 12, 2017 (SSB) — As one of the people who championed for the cause of our independence, I decided to initiate a new fight for the survival of the country we fought to achieve. There is a need to fight for the freedom from want meaning economic freedom and soon I will move to my home area in Biong area in the former Gogrial East County to advocate for this particular freedom first among my community and later on I will move to others.
The project is seed breeding farm. One of the main resources to increase food production and timely availability and distribution of affordable viable seeds that are locally produced to cut down the expensive and imports. Farmers in my home area do not have easy access to seeds and the government has limited capacity to provide seeds. In view of the difficulty, farmers in the areas face difficulties to farm at the rain times of the raining season.
Proposing to establish a seed breeding research farm is the key to agriculture development. The farm is planned to produce sufficient quantities that will meet the demand for seeds in the area first.
The rationale for establishing the seed breeding farm is for youth to be engaged in production in the area and also to be self-reliant in seeds production for timely distribution to farmers in the season. Since the years of our independence, the government has never provided seeds to farmers and there is no explanation for the total lack of supply of seeds to farmers.
I want a woman in my village to learn, earn and lead. This is a time to create powerful allies in the rural areas across South Sudan if the issue of development is a real. There, some of us need not to be soft, small or irrelevant because people have rights to freedom from want like other freedoms. Our villagers whose thinking once defined by ignorance, ill health, isolation, and fear will turn to be productive and contributors to economic of the country
In 1941, while addressing United States Congress, former US President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke about four freedoms, first two freedoms of speeches and religious than freedom from fear and freedom from want meaning economic freedom.
With respect to other three freedoms, I strongly believed in the freedom from want because without it we cannot secure the survival of this country, without it, we cannot have the healthy society and without it, we cannot secure sustainable peace for this country.
This is another front fellow citizens.
The author is the former chief editor for Citizen Newspaper in Juba and Khartoum Monitor during the war of liberation. He can be reached via his Facebook profile
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