These are heady times for Irish farmers as they contemplate the lifting of European Union milk quotas, a move that could open the way towards rapid expansion in dairy output. With steady investment, a fair climate and fertile land, Ireland’s dairy industry stands on the brink of a prosperous future, producing for regional markets and beyond.
Contrast this with another country that has all of the potential but much less of the good governance, stable climate and stability that has blessed Ireland for the past century and a half. Earlier this week, I was in South Sudan, a country of nearly two-thirds of a million square metres with probably less than half a per cent of the paved roads of Ireland.
South Sudan is the youngest, and one of the poorest, countries in the world, and despite the wave of global optimism that marked its birth as an independent nation in 2011, its early years, sadly, have been marked by conflict, displacement and widespread hunger.
It is no exaggeration to say that with its largely untapped agricultural resources, South Sudan still has the potential to be both the bread basket and the dairy for an entire region of Africa. But that potential is being sapped by a devastating civil conflict that has forced hundreds of thousands to flee their farms, leaving young men with little future other than a life on the frontlines with a gun.
Before war erupted between the different political factions in South Sudan, a little more than a year ago, the World Food Programme (WFP) was working with partners such as Irish Aid, as well as with national and international non-governmental organisations, to help the new nation lay solid foundations across the entire country for a food-secure future. South Sudan should have been a country where we could prove that, with the right interventions in place, the goal of zero hunger is achievable within a generation. With each passing day of this tragic conflict, that goal slips further out of reach.
On the bright side, the foundation-building work continues in parts of the country where peace prevails and markets are strong. But the opportunity for success shrinks with the evolving conflict. Outside the conflict zones, WFP is helping to upgrade roads in the state of Eastern Equatoria, providing smallholder farming co-operatives with better access to local markets.
Vouchers
Even in the camps for people displaced by conflict, such as Mingkaman, where 80,000 people are sheltering on the banks of the river Nile, WFP supports local traders and injects much-needed cash into the local economy by introducing vouchers.
Unfortunately, the work of WFP in supporting recovery and building resilience among poor farmers is overwhelmed by the growing financial burden of responding to increasing emergency food needs, a result of the escalating conflict in South Sudan. Already, 2.5 million people require emergency food assistance, and this number is expected to rise as we enter the lean rainy season.
Right now, the rains are approaching. In the seasonal agricultural cycle of South Sudan, it is a time when farmers would normally plant seeds in the ground. But when the fields are too dangerous for farmers to reach, and too many able-bodied young men are either volunteering or being forced to the frontlines of conflict, there is far too little farming and far too much fighting taking place.
Because the rains make roads impassable and the shifting frontlines of conflict cut across our supply routes, WFP is pre-positioning food in the places we anticipate will become most difficult to reach. Failure to pre-position in this way often results in costly operations requiring airlifts, an expensive alternative to moving food by river or road.
The governments that support us – Ireland’s among them – have this year again been generous. But it is no secret that the financial gap between what we need to do to carry out our vital work and what we can actually do is growing.
In the miserable camps for the displaced, I have met the mothers of young children who have lost their fathers and older brothers, some of them victims of the conflict, many others fleeing the militia forces that are making South Sudan ungovernable. It is hard not to share their despair about the fate of a country where humanitarian intervention is providing life support when recovery will only truly come through a political solution to conflict.
Hopeful
But I remain hopeful. For as long as South Sudan still has the potential to feed itself and grow food exports for a wider regional market, we must not turn away. There is simply too much at stake to allow our newest nation, South Sudan, to become another chronically neglected state that is the focus of a seemingly endless emergency response operation. We share a collective responsibility to help the victims of conflict create a different narrative, one that requires peace.
Any new narrative will be determined by the future success of rural development.
Farmers throughout the world will recognise the challenges and opportunities that South Sudan is facing and the attachment it has to a future based on agriculture. Having fought so hard for independence, the vast majority of its people still cherish the idea of a future in which they and their children can provide for themselves.
This is a critical time for South Sudan. What we do now will determine the path taken by this young nation for generations to come. Working together, we can make sure it is a route to peace and stability that allows it a role to play in a safer, more prosperous world.
Ertharin Cousin is executive director of the United Nations World Food Programme