Sustaining Agriculture

This Thanksgiving, I (Mary) have much to be thankful for. Particularly, this year I will remember all of those who have helped Abukloi Secondary School thrive thus far. This celebration will be tempered, however, as I sit down for our family feast and remember our friends at Abukloi who have never had the experience of abundance.

Over the next few years, it is our goal to develop a program in Rumbek that will address one of the core issues weighing on South Sudan and our students:  food insecurity. One of the main goals of Abukloi Secondary is to not only give students a formal education, but also teach them real life skills they can use to create employment. As we all learned during the Arab Spring uprisings, an educated citizenry may indeed be essential to a free state, but if those educated citizens don’t have employment it eventually leads to unrest.

Road into Rumbek

There is no employment more self-sustaining than food production. Agriculture is a largely undeveloped sector of the South Sudan economy. Almost all of Rumbek, if not all of Lakes State, experiences malnutrition at some level. Hunger is pervasive among our students. They eat one meal a day. The meal consists of vegetables and grains, as meat consumption is extremely rare. Students sleep very little, are up around 5:30am, and many must walk at least an hour to school exacerbating the effects of low caloric intake.

Purchasing food in the market to feed students is cost prohibitive. South Sudan’s small agriculture sector means food is virtually non-existent in the large Rumbek Town market. What is available is relatively expensive.  As most families in the Dinka areas are pastoralists, very little area is used for agriculture besides the small household garden. Fuel shortages and security issues also contribute to high prices by making the transportation of products from food production areas to town very expensive.

Eggplant Bed

So this year, Abukloi Secondary added agriculture to the school’s curriculum. Although not a compulsory subject in the national exam, the subject is mandatory for all students at our school. The intent is to teach the students proper application of agricultural practices that they can apply at home and share with their communities.

Okra

Students and teachers worked on designing beds, planting seeds, watering and weeding. In addition to students working on the garden for class work, an agricultural club was created for students especially interested in the project. In June, an ox-plough was hired and one-third of our school’s 12 acres was tilled for crops. Crops were sown using the “scientific method” (rows and mounds) and traditional method (casting seeds over raked earth) so the students could compare the results.

Several crops were chosen for this first garden. A majority of the grounds were planted with ground nuts, while other beds were planted with okra, kale, pumpkins, tomatoes, and eggplant. When it was time to harvest, the students came to bring in the crops. Some of this crop will be consumed by the students and teachers, but most will be saved and sold at market when prices rise. The proceeds will be used to expand the garden and train area residents how to grow their own food. Slowly, the school’s garden will sustain not only itself, but the surrounding community.

Pumpkins and Ground nuts

Ground nuts ready for mar

As one our students, David, said, “Without education people cannot be in life. And life is dependent on agriculture. If there is no agriculture, there is no life.” 

Be thankful for life this season.