Amatic Chol in his nursery garden

(Rumbek )- Strolling casually in the middle of his tree nursery on the edge of Rumbek town, Amatic Chol recalls how a brief visit to Kenya in the mid-1990s changed his life.

The 65-year-old father of 21 children had gone to neighbouring Kenya to train as an ox plough trainer, but returned to his hometown of Rumbek, South Sudan as an ardent environmentalist.

“In Kenya, I learned about the importance of growing trees, both for the environment and as an income-generating activity,” said Amatic.

Upon his return, Amatic immediately tried his hand at tree planting. He raised hundreds of mango and lemon tree seedlings and distributed them free-of-charge to members of his community.

“These were the only seeds available and there was no support from anywhere,” he recalled.

The arrival of FAO’s Sustainable Agriculture for Economic Resiliency (SAFER) project from 2017 to 2021, changed all this. SAFER, funded by USAID, focused on supporting livelihoods and building resilience by helping vulnerable farmers to meet their food and nutritional needs.

The project distributed seeds, polythene bags and material for putting up shades over seedbeds, as well as tools needed for the establishment and management of tree and fruit nurseries to different groups of beneficiaries.

It offered trainings in nursery design, preparation of suitable soil mixture, compost pile, and seedbeds, filling of polythene bags, erecting shades over seedbeds and potted seeds, and watering sown seeds.

In addition to mangoes and lemon fruits, Amatic’s tree and fruit nursery now produces seedlings for a variety of crops, including, guava, red pepper, avocado, mahogany and lemongrass.

“That was when I began to earn some money through the sale of seedlings. Paying for my children’s school fees, medical bills and other needs became a lot easier,” said Amatic.

In fact, for Amatic and approximately 30 other members of his Cindu Piir Yin Group (meaning Your Hand is Your Survival in the Dinka language), the project improved their lives in ways they had never imagined.

“I used some of the cash I got from the tree and fruit nursery to buy oxen, which I then used to expand my farm,” Amatic explained. He also bought a motorbike that he proudly shows off to visitors.

Other activities under the SAFER project registered similar successes, with beneficiaries carrying on and even expanding their activities long after funding ended in August 2021.

Adhieu Ater Majok, a 36-year-old mother of nine children heads one such activity, the Nhomlou (Freedom in Dinka) Women’s Group.

Adhieu first decided to establish a vegetable garden after her husband abandoned her for a younger woman and she found herself struggling to cater for her children’s needs.

She was unemployed at the time and had no source of income. “Life was very hard. The children were suffering,” Adhieu remembered.

She then persuaded other women with similar problems to join her in establishing a vegetable garden in 2014, where they soon started to produce a variety of vegetables, including tomatoes, okra and eggplants. 

While the women had started the initiative on their own, the SAFER project gave their business a boost by providing training, seeds and tools such as hoes, rakes and watering cans.

“SAFER opened our eyes. We started to earn more money from the production of vegetables. We could also afford to send our children to school and provide for their basic needs,” said Adhieu.

The SAFER project ended in 2021, but the women had learned and earned enough not only to sustain the vegetable project, but also to establish a farm in the village of Molouk, just outside town.

“Last year’s yield was poor, so we decided to reinvest all the money we got from the sale of the sorghum and groundnuts to rent an additional 12-feddan (about 5 hectares) farm,” explained Adhieu.

The group has grown from an initial membership of 30 to now nearly 60 farmers, and they now cultivate a total area of 24 feddans (10 hectares).

In addition to sorghum and groundnuts, Adhieu’s group also planted cowpeas.

 “My dream is to continue expanding and to organize ourselves into a formal cooperative society and Village Savings and Loan Association. In this way, we will always be able to support members of our group with interest-free loans,” said Adhieu.

 “These groups continue to exist, even without our support. That is a sign of sustainability and ownership,” noted Abraham Mading Ador, FAO Plant Production and Protection Associate, who was the organization’s focal person on the SAFER project in Lakes States.

According to Ador, the majority of vendors in the Rumbek market are actually beneficiaries of SAFER’s trainings on enterprise development and business skills.

For Adhieu, the greatest benefit of the project was generating enough income from the sale of vegetables to pay for her daughter’s tuition fees in the University of Rumbek, extending the benefits of the project beyond the original beneficiaries to empower the next generation of South Sudanese women