Jonglei State of the Republic of South Sudan is actually the bottom of the Nile Basin, this means it is floods prone mostly and the local crops seeds therefore are floods resistant, however, sorghum is the staple food crop grown all over the State, other crops come in a secondary stage. In this juncture, the seeds imported and distributed by humanitarian organizations are tried several times by the local farming communities but got no impact as to the adaptability and acclimatizing to the new environment from the origin of the seed, secondly, the imported seeds might have been doing well under well advance plant protection techknowledgy and well drained soils, intact different climates suit different varieties of the same crop and each crop variety of the same variety adapt to different climate and region of the world and can do well where ever suitable to it. Researchers should come up with some kind of no boundary organization, raise fund and register itself to discover crops as to their adaptability but not imposing some kind of seed techknowledgy but improve the local as to its locality.
I am not totally disagreeing but experiments on vast varieties of different can be carried out in the State in particular and in the whole of the Country. But I object to the idea of direct distribution to the local farming communities without prior experiment.

Atem de Gak Atem


From: Okidi, Joseph (FAOKE) <[log in to unmask]>;
To: <[log in to unmask]>;
Subject: FW: Unsuitable crop varieties being provided to affected population in the form of seed aid in the horn of Africa region
Sent: Fri, Aug 1, 2014 8:41:15 AM

Dear all,

 

Minor correction in the title : Unsuitable Crop varieties but  Not crop parieties.

 

Regards,

 

Joseph

 

From: Okidi, Joseph (FAOKE)
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 10:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Unsuitable crop parieties being provided to affected population in the form of seed aid in the horn of Africa region

 

Dear All,

 

 

A lot of humanitarian and recovery work in food security in the Horn of Africa region involves provision of seed aid with significant direct seed distribution of seed sourced from the formal sector (seed companies). There have been concerns from some of the assisted famers in the recent past that some of the varieties are unsuitable (un-adapted and un-preferred). Many times famer’s seed are considered of poor quality by humanitarian actors, and therefore, the need to provide them with quality seeds of varieties which are improved – high yielding, disease resistant, drought tolerant etc.

 

1.      Do you agree that at times unsuitable varieties are being provided in the form of seed aid? What is your experience with this? And do you think this can be improved?

 

2.      Do you think seed security of the crisis/disaster affected population is well assessed and analyzed before any intervention – If not how do you want this improved?

 

3.      Are the views of the affected populations normally well taken into consideration when planning seed related interventions by humanitarian actors?

 

Note: This e-discussion will run until 15th of August.

 

Regards,

 

Joseph Okidi

 

Seed System Specialist

FAO REOA

 

 

 



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