SOUTH SUDAN’S INFRASTRUCTURE: A CONTINENTAL PERSPECTIVE

# **Box 2. Transport bottlenecks for agricultural production in the Upper Nile State**

The Upper Nile State has among the greatest agricultural potential in South Sudan and accounts for 90 percent of the population’s income. The arable land in this region is over 70,000 acres. Gum arabic, which is widely exported, is grown, as are other crops such as maize, sesame, and sorghum. Despite great agricultural potential, farmers across the board suffer from low returns on their economic activity.

An inadequate road network is a binding constraint on unlocking the state’s agricultural potential in the short and medium term. At present the road density (km per 1,000 sq km of land area) is only half of what is observed in South Sudan and one-fourth of the road density of Sudan as whole. The existing roads are unpaved (except for a few kilometers between Malakal and Renk), inadequate, and impassable during the rainy season.

Large-scale mechanized farming and medium-scale agriculture yield low returns. One reason for this is the extremely poor condition of the road networks between urban and rural areas (feeder roads) and poor infrastructure, such as a shortage of storage facilities that constrain the expansion of farming areas. These factors have hampered the growth of value-added activities on existing farms and limited market access by raising input costs. Mediumsized farmers in particular are impeded by the inadequate transportation network between Renk and Malakal (which is intermodal between river and road). This also increases the price for agricultural inputs from northern states. These farmers do not receive as much benefit as the large-scale mechanized farmers do in economizing transport and transaction costs.

Small-scale farmers also suffer from low returns on their economic activity particularly due to the deficiencies in the urban-rural network that is required to connect these producers to markets. Average travel times to the nearest market in the state take very long. River transport to rural areas away from the White Nile (along Sobat River) takes much longer than to points along the White Nile. This points to a more acute constraint that smallholders in hinterlands face in accessing markets along the White Nile.

_<u>Source:</u>_ <u>Yoshino and others 2009.</u>

**Table 7. South Sudan’s spending needs for regional, national, rural, and urban connectivity**

||**Road leng**<br>**conditi**<br>|**th in good**<br>**on (km)**<br>|Spending|needs (US$|million per y|ear over a 10-ye|ar period)|GDP share|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
||**Actual**|**Required**|||||||
||||Expand<br>capacity|Upgrade<br>category|Improve<br>condition|Maintenance|Total||
|||||**Basic sc**|**enario**||||
|National|0|1,193|0|56|5|20|81|1.3|
|Regional|0|1,307|0|157|0|35|191|3.2|
|UAI|6|1,085|63|2|1|2|68|1.1|
|RAI||6,969|0|12|5|24|40|0.7|
|Total|6|10,554|63|227|10|81|380|6.3|
|||||**Pragmatic**|**scenario**||||
|National|0|1,193|0|42|0|19|61|1.0|
|Regional|0|1,307|0|62|0|22|85|1.4|
|UAI|6|462|20|2|1|2|25|0.4|
|RAI||6,969|0|3|1|50|54|0.9|
|Total|6|9,931|20|109|2|93|224|3.7|

_Source:_ Adapted from Carruthers, Krishnamani, and Murray (2009). _Note:_ UAI = Urban Accessibility Index; RAI = Rural Accessibility Index.

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