Sudanese Women’s in the rural area
Battle poverty under the guns sound
INSAF ELHASSAN
SUDAN KHARTOUM
Kulthuam, a female subsistence farmer, looks with heartbreak and pain at her Juobrakeh crops, which are her main source of income and food for the family. Pests destroyed most of her production, “I am not lucky, like my friends in other localities of Western Kurdufan State, they were supported by the United Nations’ IFAD, and learned how to fight pests, and have been provided with improved seeds,” she says.
And in another place in, North Kurdufan, the signs of happiness and satisfaction appear on Hawa’s face. This season, the production of her Juobrakeh came out well and was more than she expected. She can provide her small family with grains and vegetables and then sell the surplus to the local market and buy her family’s needs — sugar, oil, and soap.
“I thank the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the sponsors of the Agricultural Development and Integrated Marketing Project. They have helped us greatly. We have been trained in pest control, food industries, adding new types of vegetables, and they support us with improved seeds,” says Hawa.
What is Juobrakeh?
Juobrakeh in Sudanese local culture is rural women growing vegetables, and some rapidly maturing crops around or inside the house, or in their locality. In order to provide for the needs of her family during the critical period of the autumn season, especially in August, when all family members are busy growing field crops in their fields.
The women save money by selling the surplus in the local market to meet her family’s requirements. The area and dimensions of the Juobrakeh is usually between an acre and a half. Many types of vegetables are grown in Juobrakeh, such as tomatoes, melons, watermelons, arugula, sorghum, sugar cane, radishes, lentil, and some crops such as olfactory corn, and peanuts.
One of the most important agricultural operations in Juobrakeh is the soil irrigation during the rainy season and the use of animal dung as organic fertilizer in soil fertilization.
Juobrakeh aims to improve the standard of living of the family and increase the family’s income. It is also a major source of food for a family’s animals.
Sudanese women in rural areas are interested in agriculture. They cultivate spaces around or inside the house and in this way can still do their many other household duties.
Agriculture is an important part of the economy in Sudan. It is also a valuable sector providing the population with food. More than 60% of the population works in agriculture, most of them live in rural areas. Women play an active role in the development and support for the agricultural sector, and play an important role in the production and marketing of agricultural products
Total area of arable land in Sudan is estimated at about 200 million hectares, and agricultural land constitutes about 80% of the country’s area. These areas include agricultural land in the White Nile and Blue Nile, plains and valleys in the north, center and west of the country, as well as the eastern and southern coastal areas.
Female farmers on the rise
There has been a major shift in the agricultural sector in Sudan in recent decades. The participation of women in agriculture has increased by 34%, especially after the secession of southern Sudan in 2011. Then Sudan lost its greatest economic resource oil, and the complex political situation that Sudan has been going through since the revolution in December 2018, and the political inability to make a civil government until the writing of the report, with the recent bloodshed and unrest.
Unemployment is estimated at 36% and the poverty rate is 48%, according to the Sudanese National Bureau of Statistics. The agricultural roles of women were primarily associated with the production of subsistence crops, to support their families and local communities.
Despite the clear presence of women in the agricultural labor force, their livelihoods are still fraught with dangers, due to the difficulty of women’s access to land and resources, especially in rural areas, where there is still a state of inequality between the sexes, and they are often unable to own land or obtain loans. The percentage of women who own agricultural land in Sudan ranges from 10% to 20%, according to a 2016 report from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
The matter is further complicated by climate change and its effects, which has led to increased droughts and desertification, and devastating floods and torrents in the autumn season. This is making it difficult for women to access adequate resources and maintaining them even more difficult. In addition, women farmers are often denied access to agricultural training and support services. This makes them less able to innovate and adapt to new production methods.
Women have traditionally participated in agricultural activities in the Sudan, including agriculture, harvesting, and marketing agricultural products. Women also participate in other activities such as livestock production and small agriculture. Women’s participation in the agricultural sector has a positive impact on family livelihoods, providing them with income and food. Women’s agricultural activities also help create jobs in rural areas.
In recent years, the government of Sudan has taken initiatives to improve the agricultural sector and increase women’s access to these resources. In particular, the government has developed programs to facilitate women’s access to credit, promote entrepreneurship, and strengthen agricultural production. This has improved the productivity of women’s agriculture, resulting in improved yields and incomes for rural families. In addition, increased market access has enabled women to sell their products, this is done through several initiatives, including:
The Sustainable Agriculture Support Program, The Rural Women Empowerment Program ,Agricultural Infrastructure Development Program and Agricultural Productivity Improvement Program.
The FAO has proclaimed 2023 as the International Year of Millet, with the aim of creating awareness and increasing the production and consumption of millet cereals. Millet is a good food for human health with reduced water and input requirements for its cultivation.
Total area of arable land in Sudan is estimated at about 200 million hectares, and agricultural land constitutes about 80% of the country’s area. These areas include agricultural land in the White Nile and Blue Nile, plains and valleys in the north, center and west of the country, as well as the eastern and southern coastal areas. In the Sudan, millet comes immediately after maize in terms of area and production in the Sudan, with an average annual cultivation of about 6 million acres. About 95% of this area is cultivated in the Western Sudan states of Kurdufan, Darfur, Qadarif, Kassala, and Blue Nile.
Several projects have been implemented in Sudan to enable women to grow millet, by providing training and resources to women to grow millet properly and efficiently. This has increased women’s productivity, improved their income and enhanced their role in society.
Agriculture Development and Integrated Marketing Project
Juobrakeh
Since 2018, the IFAD-funded Western Sudan Resource Management Program has been targeting women in the natural resources management component to provide vegetable crops to rural families and continues to expand this activity in the Agricultural Development and Integrated Marketing Project as a key activity to increase production and productivity aimed at improving the family’s standard of living and increasing income.
Responsible for gender and field activities
Mrs. Atika Marouf Responsible for gender and field activities in Agriculture Development and Integrated Marketing Project says “The activity of Juobrakeh is one of the programs of IFAD and is of paramount importance to economic and nutritional returns”.
Marouf asserts that Juobrakeh’s activity, began in the 2018 and continues to date, fourteen thousand (14,000) women and families have benefited at thirteen (13) localities in four states: North Kurdufan, West Kurdufan, South Kurdufan, and Sennar. The project supports beneficiaries by providing vegetable seeds and farming tools.
She added that the project has been providing support and agricultural inputs from improved seeds such as okra, tomatoes, eggplant, watermelons, gourds, Pumpkin, watercress, radish, etc. and providing small machines to prepare the ground for growing crops. IFAD is also providing pest control services for vegetables by focusing on biological control using organic materials and traps and providing the necessary technical support through the project’s guidance teams.
Participating women have been trained in the planning and preparation of the land according to recommended techniques in each region, farming, seed farming, seed production, and cultivation, control operations, and various crop methods.
Women are also trained for post-harvest operations to take advantage of the production of Juobrakeh for as long as possible, such as drying vegetables and making jams and juices.
Beneficiary Manahil Mohammed from Al-Tabna village in North Kurdufan (who harvests Okra, pepper, tomato crops) says, “I joined the program in 2019 and I learned new things in agriculture. We were supported with improved resilience and agricultural tools that helped us greatly in farming and harvesting operations. We also trained in pest control. At first farming cost (14,000) Sudanese pounds. At the end of the season, I made a profit of 50,000 pounds (50000 SD).
Beneficiary Rawda (mother of five children) says, “Juobrakeh program has made me and my family’s life a lot better, and I can save and provide for my family’s needs. “I am able to buy animals for milk and I can feed my kids as well.”
The project has helped these women cover household expenses; help their husbands care for their families, purchase supplies of children’s clothes and school clothes, purchase books and pens, and pay tuition fees. Their contributions have also allowed them to purchase household furniture, the construction of rooms in homes, and house maintenance; it hugely improves their quality of life.
Social Benefits
There are not only monetary benefits as the Juobrakeh’s women also gain a greater respect and appreciation from members of their family and the community, which boosts their self-esteem and worth by making them an advisor for the people, they value her opinion and participation in solving social problems.
Juobrakeh also grants her relatives and neighbor’s food, and feeds them fruit and vegetables, which enhances social relations and strengthens ties.
Health Benefits
The World Food Program published the Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Assessment. report states that the combined effects of the economic and political crisis, conflict, displacement, climatic shocks, and poor harvests have greatly affected people’s access to food in Sudan. According to the Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Assessment Report, 34% percent of the population (about 15 million people) was food insecure during the first quarter of 2022.
Juobrakeh products and vegetable intake have contributed to the nutrition of children, pregnant women, lactating women, and the elderly, which has had a positive impact on their resistance to diseases, especially malaria and infant diseases.
Dr. Yassir Jammeh, a former consultant to the Agriculture Development and Integrated Marketing Project, says The program has implemented awareness campaigns about nutritional education, linking agriculture with nutrition, this make Juobrakeh women more knowledgeable and aware about the feeding process and growing crops and vegetables that are nutritional and healthy ,contain iron and vitamins such as, tomatoes and watercress.
The most important challenges facing Juobrakeh cultivation is that it is grown in the autumn season from June to October and it covers the needs of families for only four to five months. The project supervisors worked to reduce this by training women in post-harvest operations such as drying, making juices and jams to benefit from them for a long time. Now, women are being trained on how to store rainwater in tanks and pits inside homes to benefit from it in irrigation operations after the end of the rainy season.
Training Participants on adding value to their produce
The beneficiaries were trained on how to make juices and jams. Drying vegetables such as okra and onions, adds value to production.
The Sudan News Agency (SUNA) wrote that the IFAD mission visited the Integrated Agriculture and Marketing Development Project on March 30, 2023, in North Kurdufan State to follow up and assign the next term of the funds and visited the communities of the project.
A war broke out between the army and a rebel faction within the Sudanese capital, and other areas were affected by the conflict. Marouf asserts that office work stopped for fear of looting and theft, but the Juobrakeh’s women, nothing discourages them to continue working in agriculture.
This report was written and produced as part of a media skills development program delivered by the Thomson Reuters Foundation.