Yeri Payam of Mvolo County in western Equatoria state has been known as a no-go zone for years due to conflict. People there continue to live under biting poverty due to disruption of livelihoods. The conflict affected agricultural production as the only source of income and family survival.
James Tambura is a 43 years old farmer and father of six from Yeri. When they formed Yeri Cooperative Society, they did so with hopes of saving through agriculture but then they were immediately met with a huge setback. As the peace returned because of the inter-communal dialogues they lacked tools, seeds and skills to scale up their production to cater for both family consumption as well as the savings. “We had formed the cooperative society but it almost collapsed because we could not produce enough crops to feed our families and have extra for sell but because of the inputs given to us by Salaam Junub with support from UNDP, we managed to get 14 bags on which we saved 81,000 South Sudanese pounds and gave the rest to our families”, Says James.
The support has helped us to have enough food for our families and that has given us a lot of freedom to think about savings instead of dwelling on family survival only.
Before the intervention:
The families in Yeri as well as most parts of Mvolo did agriculture on small scale for family survival. When they learnt about Cooperative society, they picked up the interest to scale up agriculture to generate income for saving but most of the cooperatives collapsed due to lack of income as members had no tools, seeds and skills to scale up their production for both family consumption and income generation.
Nature of intervention:
Salaam Junub with funding from UNDP trained and provided Ox-plough and seeds to the group members to be able to scale up production and generate income towards their cooperative group.
With this support, members were able to produce more crops for commercial purpose hence each member saving up to 81,000 South Sudanese pounds.
After the intervention:
The group members as well as the wider community in Yeri have now shifted their concentration from conflict and home consumption production to commercial one. This has been made possible by the availability of tools (Ox-ploughs) provided by Salaam Junub. The group members now generate more income from offering ox-plough services to community at a cheaper price which has encouraged commercial agriculture more. More so, the members are able to send children to schools and cater for other family needs.