The Next Giant (1)

Eng. Omer Hassan Sakin Ahmed

Sudan is endowed with infinity of resources, such as fertile soil, abundant water; Taking everything into a consideration, its true to say that, the vast land which is extending from moist, undulating, exuberance and absolutely productive. Ever had we seen as such rich land all over the world surrounded by sea, rivers, mountains, swamps, and environment that has high agricultural capability and potentiality (more than 84 million hectares of arable land.

The agriculture in Sudan could be characterized as economy locomotive; It’s considered as backbone of the economy, since Sudanese people are relying on it for their livelihood: more than 85% of the community either farmers or pastoralists, directly engaged in agricultural activities. Besides, 10% of them involve in agribusiness and agro-industrial “dealing with export of valuable commodities such as cotton, sesames, groundnut, hibiscus, etc. parallel with importing of agricultural inputs for instance, fertilizer, seed, fungicide, rodenticide and herbicide.

Moreover, the contribution of agriculture in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) fluctuated between 30.2 and 48.7 from 1990 to 2022 respectively.

The patten of agricultural system could be divided into three types, regarding the method of production as below:

1. Irrigated systems from Blue, White and River Nile as well as water harvesting system, which have been used at more than 24 schemes and projects like, 1. Abu Naama 12600 ha., 2. Pump Scheme of Sennar (including Shashena) 75600 ha., 3. Hurga and Naur-Eldeen 42000 ha, 4. Genaid Sugar 22400 ha., 5. Seleit 12600 ha., 6. Small Private Pump 100000 ha., 7. Waha 12600 ha., 8. Gizera-Managil Scheme 924369.75 ha., 9. El-Rahad Scheme 126000 ha., 10. Suki Scheme (old and new) 37800 ha., 11. New Sennar Sugar 22455.72 ha., 12. Guneid Extension Haddaf/Wadel Faddul 8400 ha. 13. White Nile System 140259 ha., 14. Kanana Sugar Scheme 39984 ha., 15. Kenana Mixed Crops 6300 ha., 16. White Nile Pump 75600 ha., 17. Atbara System 210000 ha., 18. New Halfa Scheme 194250 ha., 19. New Halfa Sugar 15750 ha., 20. Merowe – Dongola 42000 ha., 21. Hasanab – Merowe 11200 ha., 22. Khartoum_Tamaniat_Hasanab 42000 ha., 23. Khashm El-Girba Scheme 210084 ha., 24. Khor Abu Habil 950000 ha.

The total area cultivated in Sudan is about 20.84 million hectares. Notwithstanding, 11% out of it under irrigation system which is produce around 50% of the total volume of the agricultural production,

2. Mechanical rainfed system,
3. Traditional rainfed system.

In addition to livestock production systems: which is divided into nomadic transhumant, and sedentary systems. (Will be in the next edition).

To sum up, however, the development of agricultural sector is imbued with challenges, but fortunately nowadays a golden opportunity before Sudan, it should be seized in order to reforming the budget/trade deficit, by quickened intently the pace from conventional agriculture practices towards agribusiness, agro-industrialization and sustainable development.

Then and only then, under the umbrella of agricultural transformation, adopting small scale of agro-industrial to be selected according to the potentiality of regions, community habits and activities. So, could Sudan rise to the rank of developing countries by changing the conceptualization of institution, authority, decision maker and layman alike towards agricultural investment and agricultural researches.