2021 Seed Grant Award Problem Statements 

Agriculture / Food Security

Problem #11: South Sudan’s farmers have huge post-harvest loses due to poor and or inadequate food preservation knowledge or technologies.

Country/Region of execution:  South Sudan
Collaborating Organization: World Concern Development Organization
World Concern, an international relief and development agency founded in 1955, focuses on the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable within society, providing capacity-building for partners, while having the flexibility to respond to disasters through relief and rehabilitation assistance. Currently World Concern is implementing roughly $30 million in programming in its 10 country offices located throughout Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Since 1991, WCDO has received, implemented and administered grants in excess of $59 million from USAID. WCDO headquarters is based in Seattle, WA, and the South Sudan country office is located in Juba, Western Bhar al Ghazal.
Problem Statement Description: This problem is associated with SDG no. 2: Zero hunger: End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture. South Sudan is currently facing serious levels of food insecurity, according to the latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis. Conflicts, food shortages, climate shocks, a deepening economic crisis, flooding, pest infestation and insufficient agricultural production at the household level have kept levels of hunger and acute malnutrition alarmingly high, seriously undermining people’s ability to secure sufficient nutritious food all year round. Currently, only grains and fish are sun-dried, using a traditional method. Not many people, if any, are aware of solar drying for fruits and vegetables, which could provide a balanced diet during the lean seasons and reduce post-harvest loses. World Concern like many other partners has been investing a lot of money to increase food production with a hope of making the local population become food secure. However, high post-harvest losses continue to inhibit efforts towards households’ food security. This is even worse with vegetables, which are highly needed by families in this under-resourced country.  This will need awareness creation and advocacy to ensure this technology is adequately adopted and its effectiveness demonstrated. One of the hugely available resource for free that the country can tap into to enhance food preservation is the use of solar preservation methods. Solar preservation is a technology that is not entirely new and has been around in the region with remarkable success. And since different development actors have been supporting the rural communities across South Sudan to boost the vegetable production, this would be a critical introduction into the value chain. Communities can maximize this simple technology to preserve fruits that are wasted during the main season, such as mangoes, which are plentiful in the country. This in the end will ensure all year-round supply of a balanced diet for South Sudan’s people. This technology can be a source of income for the farmers who will be engaged in preserving and selling these products as well as the technician who will be in charge on maintenance and production of the kits.