UN agriculture project to help farmers in Nuba Mountains region of Sudan

About 150,000 people in Sudan’s troubled Nuba Mountains region have received seeds, tools and construction materials as part of a scheme by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to rehabilitate the area’s farming industry.

The project – which aims to revive degraded agricultural land, create dams and build up stores of seeds – is designed to benefit farmers living on both sides of the long-running civil conflict between the Sudanese Government and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Last month representatives of Khartoum and the SPLM initialled three protocols aimed at ending that conflict in southern Sudan. A full, final peace agreement is expected within two to three months.

FAO said in a statement today that the project would contribute to political and social reconstruction in the Nuba Mountains, which are mainly in Southern Kordofan Province and part of the contested area between the Sudanese Government and the SPLM.

Anne Bauer, FAO’s Director of Emergency Operations and Rehabilitation Division, said: “Through its emergency projects, FAO is equally targeting government- and SPLM-held areas on the basis of need.”

Farmers will receive farming tools made by local blacksmiths, as well as drought-resistant varieties of groundnut, sesame, cowpea, maize and sorghum seeds.