SUDAN: South considers post-independence food and oil challenges

Record ID: 343438

  • Title: SUDAN: South considers post-independence food and oil challenges
  • Date: 1st July 2011
  • Summary: WOMAN AT MARKET STALL
  • Embargoed: 16th July 2011 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sudan, Sudan
  • Country: Sudan
  • Topics: Economy,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVA6I11LLDMOS5HAO861DEK2MAVV
  • Story Text: With only a few days left before the official declaration of South Sudan's independence on July 9, authorities are already looking forward to the tasks ahead.
    Two of the main challenges are food security and the issue of oil and fuel transport.
    Currently southern Sudanese rely heavily on food aid to survive and more than half of the population lives below the poverty line of one dollar per day.
    "The Ministry of Agriculture is planning to produce 2 million metric tonnes of cereals alone in three years time. We only need 840,000 metric tonnes of cereal for ourselves. The rest needs to go somewhere, and for it to go somewhere it has to go through trade," said the southern Minister for Agriculture, Anne Itto at a news conference.
    Presently, however, the trade flows only one way, from other countries in East Africa to south Sudan. Almost every food product available at the market comes from Kenya or Uganda. Only coriander is produced locally, and onions are imported from Khartoum.
    South Sudan, which was embroiled in 21 years of civil war that ended in 2005 with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, lacks proper roads, heavy machinery, access to fertilisers and high-yield seeds.
    Productivity is also hampered by small-area farming -- an average farm is 0.3 hectares, and reliance on rains as the only means of irrigation.
    "In Sudan they do not do any work at all. They do not dig because these things here all come from plantations, from the farmers. Here within Sudan there is no farmers like us. These things we have just planted in Uganda and sell in Sudan. Because here they don't do so as we do," said Hussein Haji, a 38-year-old Ugandan grocery-stall owner.
    With its fertile soils and access to Nile waters, analysts say south Sudan has the potential to become a largescale food producer if government's ambitious plans come to fruition.
    Plans to diversify oil policies are also on the drawing board to help make South Sudan operate freely from the north.
    About three-quarters of the country's roughly 500,000 barrels per day of oil output comes from the south but at present south Sudan depends on crude exports, and imports of refined product, on routes and pipelines leading through the territory of its northern neighbour.
    "To put a pipeline is a very easy thing for us. I was two days ago with some oil-petroleum companies and all of them want -- they are competing -- each want to put a pipeline," Anthony Makana, southern Minister for Roads and Transport told journalists.
    "Already in Kenya there is a pipeline which connects all the way from Mombasa up to Eldoret or Kisumu. It requires another 200 km for it to reach South Sudan and it will require only (a) few million dollars to do that," he said.
    A few days ago, Khartoum warned it will block the exports if south Sudan does not agree to pay a transit fee to transport the oil through northern pipelines after independence.
    Analysts say Khartoum has been known to block transports of fuel heading south, which resulted in periodic, acute fuel shortages across south Sudan. An alternative pipeline would mean greater economic independence for the south.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: Footage contains identifiable children: users must ensure that they comply with local laws and regulations governing the publishing of this material.
Register