Sudan and South Sudan: EUC Report

Lord Cameron of Dillington Excerpts

Wednesday 17th October 2012 Grand Committee

[Lord Cameron of Dillington]

My Lords, following a parliamentary visit to South Sudan last April, I should like to focus on the new country. It will come as no surprise to some noble Lords here that I should also like to focus on agriculture there.

I realise that all the political emphasis now is on coping with the immediate problems and the crisis— I do not think that that is too strong a word—that currently exists in South Sudan: very little food; no real infrastructure to aid the delivery of supplies; no money; too many people running around with guns; too many threats to stability from both without and within; too much corruption; and both national and local government often more real in theory than in practice.

However, as Sub-Committee C’s report of June 2011 made clear, and as we discovered on our visit last April, there is tremendous potential to develop the agriculture of South Sudan as a real tool for development. For a start, we saw a lot of seemingly fertile soil that, to my farmer’s eye, has not been depleted of nutrients as with so many soils elsewhere in Africa. We also discovered that the whole country has masses of water, mostly lying in aquifers throughout the country, just under the surface and easily accessible with only a small amount of investment and help.

So my plea to DfID, the US, the UN and others, including the South Sudanese Government themselves, is: while dealing with the immediate crisis, please do not forget the essential role that agriculture can play in the medium to long-term future. It is agriculture that will kick-start the South Sudanese economy and keep it self-sufficient and resilient, and it is profitable agriculture that will give its women better status and also give those women the nutritional means to keep their children healthy, as well as the money to keep them educated.

Right now, if building roads to help the delivery of aid and supplies, build them with a view to getting future agricultural produce to markets and city centres. If distributing emergency aid and food, consider doing so from well constructed centres that will in future provide the much needed market hubs for those growing food locally. If storing emergency food, build the necessary cold stores to last and in locations of future agricultural production. If much needed water supplies are being constructed for sanitation and life in various venues around South Sudan, then think seriously about future agricultural needs in the way they are designed and located.

There are many ways to think about farming when dealing with today’s tempestuous times but, above all, because knowledge and training are the absolute key to agricultural success in sub-Saharan Africa, start now to educate those from all over the country who are to be the top of your pyramid in the pyramid selling of the necessary knowledge and training. It is only in this way that we will be able to reach out to every community in South Sudan, all of whom are needed to help that country to fulfil its enormous agricultural potential.

I came away in April with the feeling that a growing dependency culture is developing in South Sudan, which is worrying. However, fostering better agriculture, if done in the right way, can foster resilience and self-sufficiency, not dependency. It takes a long time to get an agricultural economy going from scratch, so the sooner we get started, the better.

Finally, I realise that many of the recent political efforts have concentrated on trying to get the oil flowing again so that the South Sudanese Government have funds to operate and can get things done. However, oil, too, can be a distraction, unless it is used to kick-start a real economy. Nigeria and Ghana make two interesting comparatives in this respect. Nigeria had oil and the Government, and possibly tens of thousands of people, did well out of it, but the other 159 million, until recently, failed to develop out of a precarious subsistence existence. Ghana, not quite next door, did not have oil and had the sense to develop its agriculture, and thus this year has a double figure growth rate shared by much of the population. So South Sudan must use its oil revenues in partnership with others, including the UK and the EU, to kick-start its farm production. Like Tanzania, “Agriculture First” must be the slogan for South Sudan if it is to realise its true potential.