Addressing Food Security Needs through Provision of Agricultural Inputs, Good Agricultural Practice for Internally Displaced Persons and Vulnerable Host Communities in Baidoa District. The project aims to respond to the current food insecurity in Baidoa district of Bay region as a result of a poor raining season and resulting poor crop harvest. This will be achieved mainly through provision of agricultural inputs to 7,800 internally displaced persons (IDPs) and vulnerable members of host community (1,950 men, 3,900 women, 390 boys and 1,560 girls), intended to complement the IOM’s on-going response to food insecurity situations in Baidoa. The agricultural inputs to be provided will include sorghum and cowpeas, both of which have been recommended by Food Security Cluster, as well as farm hand tools consisting of harvesting knife, hoes and pickaxes. 

To promote improved food production choices, IOM will also introduce orange fleshed sweet potatoes (OFSP) in Baidoa as recommended by the Food Security Cluster. This variety of sweet potatoes is drought resistant hence suitable for planting even with minimal rainfall. The OFSP is nutrient rich in Vitamin A and will boost nutrition among malnourished children and IDP households. The OFSP has other additional benefits which include high milk production among lactating mothers, and the leaves can be consumed as vegetables. The sweet potatoes can be dried and ground to make flour which can be used to make porridge or for baked products. For households with small livestock, the leaves of the potato can also be a source of fodder (International Potato Centre http://cipotato.org/press-room/blog/what-end-users-want-sweetpotato-speed-breeders-simulate-varietal-assessment-and-selection/).

For the introduction of OFSP, 200HH out of the 1,300targeted for this project will be selected to pilot the introduction of OFSP farming in Baidoa. These 200HH will be selected based on the following criteria Female headed households, families with malnourished children, large households with a high number of dependents, households with access to water. These 200HH will be further divided in 10 cooperative groups each cooperative consisting of 20 members, this will ensure success of the project since working as a group and pooling of resources has proven to increase efficiency and production in addition the 200HH will be able to consolidate their small units of land for better utilization 

All the above activities will involve community mobilization to inform the community of the project activities. An awareness session will also be conducted to introduce the potential of OFSP as a locally grown cost effective and sustainable solution to fight Vitamin A deficiency. 

Good agricultural practice (GAP) training will also be conducted before the distribution of the inputs and it will follow cluster recommended guidelines. The topics to be covered will include among others, land preparation, seed selection, common plant diseases and pest control. 

Baidoa is rainfall area and project will contribute towards the target in IDP farmers and host communities in Baidoa, 75% of the target project beneficiaries will be IDP farmers and 25% of the target beneficiaries will be host communities in the project target locations. The provision of agriculture inputs distribution will be based on the seasonal calendar of the Coming Deyr season of 2016 of the Sept-Nov 2016 and next Gu season of 2017, which are the months of March-May 2017.

Baidoa IDPs are mostly displaced from within the region, around Baidoa or near the town. Therefore, with support and clarifications from the local authorities in Interim South West Administration (ISWA), The Ministry of Agriculture and irrigation has indicated that the IDPs have access to farmland.