Fact-check: South Sudan is NOT the largest producer of okra in Africa
- Sep 26, 2022
- 2 min read
South Sudan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations have no data on how much okra South Sudan produces. Official statistics name Nigeria as the largest producer of okra in Africa.
By Emmanuel Bida Thomas
African Report files, a Facebook blog page with 183K followers, claimed in a post on September 3, 2022, that South Sudan is the largest producer of Okra in Africa.
The claim drew 1.6K interactions, 180 comments, and 357 shares on Facebook and was re-posted by The Mail and ACC Tv.
The same claim was shared by a Twitter user here on September 7, 2022. While some audiences believed it was accurate, others argued it was false.
However, according to data on the global production of okra by Atlas, Nigeria is the second largest producer of Okra in the world, with 1,819,018 tonnes of yearly production, making it the first in Africa. The same data can be found in the diversity times.
The database of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, FAOSTAT, which has a wealth of agricultural information, including okra, also names Nigeria as the largest producer of okra in Africa.
Okra Production in South Sudan:
An internet search on okra production in South Sudan returns no data on how many tonnes the country produces yearly.
Statistics on FAOSTATS indicate “missing value (data cannot exist, not applicable)” for okra production in South Sudan.
211 Check reached out to the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security, but they could not immediately provide statistics on okra production in South Sudan.
Conclusion:
211 Check has looked into a claim that South Sudan is the largest producer of okra in South Sudan and finds it to be false. Both South Sudan’s Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations have no data on how much okra South Sudan produces. Official statistics name Nigeria as the largest producer of okra in Africa.
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