South Sudan and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) have agreed to jointly implement a project worth 500,000 USD aimed at promoting collaboration in small-scale agriculture and agro-processing, a senior government official said on Monday.
Minister of Trade and Investment, Moses Hassan Tiel, said the partnership seeks to strengthen food security through the advancement of small scale farming, agro-processing and product certification in the conflict-hit East African nation.
He said the new project would prioritize improvements of honey products, fruits such as mangoes and pineapples and Gum Arabic in order to diversify the economy of the oil-reliant country.
“We are working together with UNIDO to develop policy documents to help us with quality assurance and certification for agricultural products produced here in South Sudan. We are working hard to make sure that agriculture products are processed here in South Sudan to boost agriculture and our economy,” Tiel said
“It is now a priority that we encourage our small scale farmers to grow much so that we restore food security in South Sudan and also level the trade balance because currently we import most of our food products including vegetables,” he said.
source: coastweek.com
