Agricultural Development for Self-Reliance and Prosperity in South Sudan

The purpose of the research is to increase knowledge and understanding of constraints in agricultural development for self-reliance and prosperity in South Sudan. This is because South Sudan has abundant fertile land with a vast potential for agricultural development. There is a diverse forest and woodlands that can provide surplus forest products for export. Livestock rearing is a productive asset in South Sudan and fishing is a source of food. There is significant fishing that contributes to household food security. However, despite the high potential for agricultural development for prosperity in South Sudan, the principal result of the research is that budgetary allocation to the agricultural sector is negligible. The lack of investment in the agricultural sector has reduced South Sudan into one of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that is gripped by perpetual food insecurity and in dire need of humanitarian assistance. Although agriculture is considered the backbone of the economy of South Sudan, agriculture is the least considered in budgetary allocation as of high priority. The major conclusion is that there is an absolute lack of investment in agriculture and South Sudan will continue to face chronic food insecurity and famine, dependent on humanitarian assistance. It is, however, recommended that further research should be undertaken to determine specific constraints to agricultural development. This is in order to increase knowledge and understanding of the challenges faced in modernizing agricultural production for food self-reliance and prosperity in South Sudan.

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Not applicable

The datasets used in this study are openly available at [repository link] and the source code is available on GitHub at [GitHub link].

This work did not receive any external funding.