The Kordofan Food Security Programme is a three-year project that covers 14 Rural Councils (RCs) in Sheikan Province of North Kordofan State and En Nahud and Gubeish Provinces of West Kordofan State. The total population of the 14 targeted RCs is estimated at 780,000 people or 129,890 households of whom some 85% are dependent on farming. KFSP is designed to address the food security problems through addressing agricultural and water needs of most vulnerable population of 390,000 or 64,945 households. This will be done through integrating agricultural productivity promoting technologies and practices such as provision of high-yield, early maturing seeds varieties, promoting integrated pest management, developing efficient village focused extension systems and providing water for agriculture and for drinking water through the construction of new, and enhancement of existing Haffirs . Community based structures will be given support to develop and manage systems and infrastructure to ensure that the interventions are sustained after the completion of the programme.
Final Programme Goal: To enhance the food security of 64,945 rural households in Sheikan Province of North Kordofan State and En Nahud and Gubeish Provinces of West Kordofan State through improving access to water and agricultural productivity enhancing technologies.
Seed Dissemination System: In the first instance, KFSP will procure seeds from local markets. Improved cereal and cash crop varieties suitable for production in the area will be distributed on the basis of their comparative advantage (suitability of soil, rainfall and farmer experience). The cereal food seed distributed will be high-yield, early-maturing varieties grown and consumed in the area. The distribution mechanism will be operated in association with the Ministry of Agriculture through Rural Councils and/or Village Committees who will receive and allocate seeds to households. Once the improved varieties are injected into the local context the programme intends to ensure further dissemination of the seed through an in-kind repayment system.
Water Harvesting: To facilitate effective seed propagation, KFSP will implement water harvesting and soil moisture conservation techniques. This will include methods such as contour bunding, V-shaped micro catchments and water harvesting scoop techniques.
Extension Methodology: The project will train Extension Agents through the Transfer of Technology (TOT) approach. This approach ensures that farmers receive clear and appropriate agricultural technology extension messages.
Haffir Construction: Haffir construction in North and West Kordofan will be implemented in 14 RCs identified by the KFIS project as being highly vulnerable (i.e. less than 6 months access to cereals) or moderately vulnerable (6 to 8 months cereal access).
Construction involves an intensive process of training of Haffir committee representatives who are responsible for the day-to- day supervision of the work.
Food Allocation: To partially mitigate the cereal access deficit, and minimize the tendency towards people’s reliance on general food distribution, the programme will target the most needy sections of the population. The programme will allocate food rations to output of work that is attractive only to the most vulnerable sections of the community as per WFP work norms. Those members of the community that still own adequate reserves of grain, livestock and cash crops will be less attracted to working on FFW sites.
