The Minister of Agriculture, Environment and Forestry says Eastern Equatoria State has called for the need to help Eastern Equatoria State with food assistance because it witnessed poor yields this year.
Placid Koks Komakech said low production has become the main threat to hunger in the area.
“The one [rain]of this year is a little bit low maybe in some other areas little bit low or nothing completely. Actually, the state has already declared that food assistance is needed for the state, the impact is going to be bad since the hunger period has started early and is going to be worse by next year January February so assistance is needed”, said Koks.
Komakech pointed out that climatic changes and limited use of machinery for cultivation contributing factor to poor yields.
“Mostly, is the Mother Nature and our people are not using machines. We don’t have irrigation system in the state, they should just keep instilling the soil because we never know how long the rain is going to be”.
He advised everybody in the state to plant more trees within their areas to attract rainfall.
“What should be done in terms of rain? In fact, I am encouraging each and everybody to plant at least twenty to thirty trees in his compound. We are making a lot of destruction of trees. A lot of trees have been cut. I have declared that we need eight million trees in Eastern Equatoria within this period until maybe up to two to three years, we have already planted eight million each and every county has to plant one million trees”.
The speaker made the Statement during an exclusive interview from his office.