The UN agency for food and agriculture launched a three-year project to organize an agriculture and food database in South Sudan.
The Agricultural and Food Information System or AFIS aims to provide decision makers with information on food and nutrition security accurate data.The UN Food and Agriculture Organization or FAO implements the programme.
The EU provided seven million Euros, the equivalent to almost 26 million Pounds, to found AFIS.
National Agriculture Minister Betty Achan Ogwaro said during the AFIS launch on Thursday in Juba that the project is about collecting data, processing it and making it accessible to all in a database.
Ms Achan said a hungry country is an angry country and it was necessary to know what people were eating both in quantity and quality.
She noted that after three years nationals should be able to collect data and manage the database without supervision.
FAO South Sudan head of office Sue Lautze said “they say information is power but in South Sudan information is life.”
She said people need information in order to take decisions to foster food security and the development of agriculture and AFIS represents FAO’s commitment to the Government to address food insecurity.
Dr Lautze underlined that in South Sudan there is a major gap in data because it is not known how many people live in the country and how much and what kinds of food it produces.
European Union representative Paolo Girlando said the EU donated 150 million Euros Ð about 740 million Pounds Ð to support the rural development sector in South Sudan, including the construction of feeder roads and improving farming techniques and seeds.
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