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FOOD SECURITY IN SUDAN Policies and Strategies

Guest Editors: Dr. Abdelrazig E. Mohamed

Ministry of Agriculture and Forests, Khartoum, Sudan

Dr. Adam E. Ahmed

Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Agricultural Economics,

University of Khartoum, Khartoum, Sudan

Dr. Allam Ahmed

SPRU – Science and Technology Policy Research, The Freeman Centre, University of Sussex,

Brighton BN1 9QE, UK Fax: +44 (0) 1273 685 865

E-mail: [email protected]

Published by Inderscience Enterprises Ltd

FOOD SECURITY IN SUDAN Policies and Strategies (Globalisation, Technology and Sustainable Development Book Series) can be ordered from the Publisher: INDERSCIENCE ENTERPRISES LIMITED, World Trade Center Building, 29 Route de Pre-Bois, Case Postale 896,CH-1215 Genève 15, Switzerland Publisher’s website: www.inderscience.com E-mail: [email protected] Copyright© 2007Inderscience Enterprises Ltd ISBN (Print) 0 – 907776– 36 – 1 (Print) ISBN (Online) 0 – 907776 – 37 – X (Online) No part of this publication may be reproduced stored or transmitted in any material form or by any means (including electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or under the terms of a licence issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd or the Copyright Clearance Center Inc.

FOOD SECURITY IN SUDAN

Page

Contents .............................................................................................................................v

List of Tables ...................................................................................................................vii

List of Figures ..................................................................................................................ix

List of Acronyms...............................................................................................................x

CHAPTER 1: Introduction

1. Background, objectives and methodology ................................................................1

CHAPTER 2: Concept of food security

2. Concept of food security...........................................................................................13

CHAPTER 3: Food security policies

3. Food security policies................................................................................................27

CHAPTER 4: The role of domestic food production in food security

4. The role of domestic food production in food security ..........................................53

CHAPTER 5: Food security institutions and information

5. Food security institutions and information ............................................................71

CHAPTER 6: Supply chain and strategic grain reserve

6. Supply chain and strategic grain reserve................................................................88

CHAPTER 7: Food insecurity coping mechanisms

7. Food insecurity coping mechanisms ......................................................................106

CHAPTER 8: Conclusions

8. Conclusions..............................................................................................................118

REFERENCES

ANNEX 1: Interviews with different stakeholders .......................................................123

ANNEX 2: Domestic and foreign institutions survey sites...........................................128

SUBJECT INDEX ........................................................................................................131

List of Tables vii

List of Tables

Page 2.1 Main ecological zones in the Sudan 17 2.2 Sudan: WFP estimated emergency food aid needs in 2004 19 2.3 Sudan total number of beneficiaries by type and region and the amount

of food aid (2006) 20

2.4 Sudan food grain balance (1995/96–2003/04) (000 tonnes) 23 2.5 Indicators of food import capacity 23, 24 3.1 Annual disbursement by the agricultural bank in main farming systems

for the period 2000–2002 (in million SD unless otherwise indicated) 31

3.2 Meeting food security and environmental MDGs in Sudan 36 3.3 Process for developing and amending the relevant land laws 45 4.1 The contribution of domestic agricultural production to food supply in

Sudan (2003) (Quantity in 000 tonnes) 54

4.2 Irrigated sub-sector: cereal crop area, production and yield (area in 000 feddan, production in 000 tonnes, Yield in Kg/feddan)

56, 57

4.3 Semi-mechanised sub-sector: cereal crop area, production and yield (area in 000 feddan, Production in 000 tonnes, Yield in Kg/feddan)

59

4.4 Traditional rainfed sub-sector: cereal crop area, production and yield (area in 000 feddan, production in 000 tonnes, Yield in Kg/feddan)

62

4.5 Estimates of animal resources for the period 1992–2004 (million head) 66 4.6 Milk production and the quantities available for consumption in Sudan

(000 tonnes) 66

4.7 Fish production by Region (000 tonnes) 68 5.1 Food crop area, production and yield: difference between ministry of

agriculture and forests and the Bank of Sudan (Area in 000 feddan, Production 000 tonnes, Yield Kg/feddan)

80

5.2 Cereal production in Sudan: FAO/WFP missions, Bank of Sudan and Ministry of Agriculture and Forests Estimates (000 tonnes, unless otherwise indicated)

81

5.3 Food crop area, production and yield differences between the Gezira scheme and the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (Area in 000 feddan, Production 000 tonnes, Yield Kg/feddan)

82

6.1 Sorghum production in Sudan by region for the period 1998–2004 (as percentage unless otherwise indicated)

89

6.2 Millet production in Sudan by region for the period 1998–2004 (as percentage unless otherwise indicated)

89

6.3 Wheat production in Sudan by region for the period 1998–2004 (as percentage unless otherwise indicated)

90

viii List of Tables

6.4 Sudan grains storage capacity (000 tonnes) 91 6.5 Capacity of transport means (all types of large capacity trucks) 93 6.6 Comparison between road and railway costs (SD/tonne) 93 6.7 Quantity of sorghum procured and distributed by ABS during 1996–2000

(Tonnes) 96

6.8 SRA procurement of grain: import vs. local purchase: 2004/05 experience 100 6.9 Sorghum price coefficient of variation (1998–2004) 101 7.1 The value of food aid pledged and committed through the Sudan appeal

(million US$) 114

7.2 Quantity of food for work distributed by WFP (2002–2005) 115

List of Figures ix

List of Figures

Page 2.1 Comparative trend analysis of the WFP food assistance in Sudan

(2003–2006) 21

2.2 How armed conflict affects food and nutrition security 22 2.3 Cereal imports as percentage of the total utilisation 24 3.1 Finance of agriculture by commercial banks as percentage of finance

of all sectors 30

4.1 Average sorghum productivity in Sudan compared to other countries (Kg/Feddan)

55

x List of Acronyms

List of Acronyms

Page AAAID Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and

Development 60, 61

AAS Administration of Agricultural Statistics ABS Agricultural Bank of Sudan 25, 72, 95, 96, 99 ARC Agricultural Research Corporation 9, 38 ACF Action Contre la Faim 52 ANA Annual Needs Assessment 18, 19, 20 AOAD Arab Organization for Agricultural Development 54, 66 BJS Bahar El Jabal State BOS Bank of Sudan 99 CPA Comprehensive Peace Agreement 19, 44, 48 CNS Comprehensive National Strategy 27, 29 CV Coefficient of Variation 100, 101 DMC Drought Monitoring Center 76 FAO Food and Agriculture Organization 1, 4, 8, 13, 14, 18,

23, 50, 51, 52, 57, 63, 64, 65, 66, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 83, 85, 88

FFS Farmer Field School 58 FSR Food Security Reserve 104 GASI General Administration of Statistics and Information GDP Gross Domestic Product 4, 30, 39, 53, 64,

102, 103 GOSS Government of Southern Sudan 48, 49, 51, 52, 73 GS Gezira Scheme 58 HAC Humanitarian Aid Commission 83 ICGOSS Interim Constitution of the Government of Southern

Sudan 48

IDP Internally Displaced Person 6, 20, 49, 51, 75, 118 IFAD International Fund for Agricultural Development 76 IOE International Office of Epizootics 49 JAM Joint Assessment Mission 37, 44, 114 MCC Minor Canal Committee 58 MDGs Millennium Development Goals 7, 32, 35, 36, 75

.. . ..

.. . ..

List of Acronyms xi

Page MFT Ministry of Foreign Trade 72 MOAF Ministry of Agriculture and Forests 44, 49, 52, 55, 59, 62,

64, 71, 79, 81, 82 MOARF Ministry of Animal Resources and Fisheries 71 MOIWR Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources 71 MOFNE Ministry of Finance and National Economy 72 MOHA Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs 72 MST Ministry of Science and Technology 72 NSCSE New Sudan Center for Statistics and Evaluation NCA Norwegian Church Aid 52 NESP National Economic Salvation Programme 27, 29, 30 NGOs Non-governmental Organizations 35, 49, 50, 52, 74, 76,

77, 94, 110, 121 PSERA Planning and Socioeconomic Research

Administration, Gezira Scheme 82

RC Red Cross 110 SCC Sudan Council of Churches 52 SEWS Sudan Early Warning System 77 SFM Swedish Free Mission 52 SMA Sudan Meteorological Authority 77 SRA Strategic Reserve Authority 72, 91, 97, 98, 99,

100, 104, 111, 120 SRRC Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission 52 UNDP United Nations Development Program 1, 8, 36, 76 UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund 1, 9 VAM Vulnerability Analysis and Mapping WB World Bank WFP World Food Programme 1, 8, 18, 19, 21, 23,

50, 51, 52, 76, 77, 79, 81, 83, 93, 94, 110, 114, 115, 117, 118

WTO World Trade Organization 37, 38, 41, 42, 71, 105, 115

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.. . ..

.. . ..

Food Security in Sudan 1

Copyright © 2008 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Chapter 1: Background, objectives and methodology

1 Introduction

“Food Security is a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

World Food Summit (1996)

In 2005 different United Nations (UN) agencies namely, World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) have agreed to support the Government of Sudan in strengthening its capacity to deal more effectively with recurring problems of emergencies and disasters (please refer to UN 2005 for more details).

As part of the UN interagency project entitled The National Project for Risk and Disaster Management in Sudan, WFP commissioned the Sudan Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MAF) to undertake this study focusing on Food Security Policies in Sudan. The study attempts to review and analyse the current food security strategy, nutritional and agricultural policies in the Sudan. In doing so, the objectives of the study have been carefully prepared after extensive consultations with government officials from Sudan and the different UN agencies (WFP, FAO, UNDP and UNICEF).

However, before that happens it is necessary to engage in a little background study as an understanding of food security in a country like Sudan can only be possible in the context of understanding the socio-economical, political, technological, behavioural aspects in Sudan as well as issues to do with production and consumption. Therefore the early parts of this chapter will deal with the context and activities of food security that are applicable to Sudan and in particular there will be a focus on the practice and challenges of the government and

2 1. Background, objectives and methodology

international agencies efforts to achieve food security in the Sudan as well as a re-conceptualisation of our understanding of food security in Sudan.

2 Country background

With an area of 2.5 million km2 (1 million miles2), Sudan is the “largest country in Africa” and “ninth largest in the world” (IMF, 1999; Salopek, 2003). Sudan has boasted the “largest farm in the world” in the Gezira irrigated Cotton scheme (Yousif, 1997) and the “world’s largest sugar-producing complex” in the Kenana project. It was also until recently the “biggest producer of Gum Arabic in the world” (Food Matters Worldwide, 1991). Sudan was optimistically referred to as an ‘awakening giant’ by the hype merchants of the 1970s, and its vast plains were seen by development experts as a potential ‘bread-basket’ – either for Africa or for the Arab World across the Red Sea (O’Brian, 1981).

2.1 Socio-economics dimensions

As indicated by the last 1995 census, Sudan is a low-density populated country. Its population, estimated at 28 million people in 1995 and currently 33 million of whom some 80% are rural, form a great mosaic of more than 500 ethnic (52% African, 39% Arab, 9% others), tribal, linguistic, religious (70% Muslim, 25% traditional African and 5% Christian) and cultural affiliations and traditions (Salopek, 2003).

Economic development indicators depict Sudan with the majority of its 35 million people depending on agriculture, a low degree of industrialisation, a disproportionately large and costly public sector, a high rate of consumer price inflation, a state budget hit by soaring $15 billion foreign debt, employment levels are threatened with a rising 30% unemployment in 2002 as well as immense war expenditure (IMF, 1999; Salopek, 2003; Grawert, 1998). Oil is one of the main Sudanese exports particularly during the last ten years providing revenues of more than $2 million a day and estimated reserves of 3 billion barrels (Salopek, 2003).


2.2 Political dimensions

The oldest catastrophic civil war in the world which has plagued Sudan for over 35 years, and whose latest phase broke out in 1983, is costing the Sudanese government an estimated $1 million a day, money better spent on the welfare of its people (IMF, 1999; Salopek, 2003; Ageeb and Hamdoun, 1997). Since 1983 the war resulted in the death of more than 2 million, displacement of 4 million and 490,000 refugees mostly southern civilians (Salopek, 2003). Furthermore, the war has also contributed to the destruction of the country’s natural resources, natural disasters have resulted in overgrasing and the land becomes more barren (IMF, 1999; Salopek, 2003; Food Matters Worldwide, 1991). Fortunately, the North-South Sudan conflict was terminated in 2005 by a peace agreement giving self-determination to the South in six years period.

Recently a new civil war started in western part of the country. Darfur conflict resulted in a civil war in 2003 when two rebel groups attacked government forces and installations. However, it is important to note that entrenched conflict existed in the region for more than two decades for political, economic and ethnic reasons. Unlike the previous North-South conflict, Darfur conflict has no religious dimension as all rival groups are Sunni Muslims. However, ethnically Darfur is inhabited by two distinct groups: Non-Arab black peoples such as Fur, Massalit and Zaghawa and Arab groups who have been leaving in the region since the 13th century. Yet, this does not implies that the Darfur community is polarised into two groups as clashes frequently take place between black-black, black-Arabs and Arabs-Arabs depending on ethnic rivalries in that traditional society. All parties participating in the conflict were accused of committing serious crimes such as killing, looting and raping. In September 2004 the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that 6000–10,000 people were dying each month in Darfur due to diarrhoea and violence. This was 3–6 times higher than the normal African death rate.


2.3 Production vs. consumption

Sudan is an agricultural country, Agriculture is the backbone of economic and social development in Sudan. About 80% of the population depend on agriculture and all other sectors are largely dependent on it. Agriculture contributes to about 42% of the country’s GDP – the largest of all sectors, over 90% of the exports (cotton, sesame, peanuts, livestock, gum Arabic and sugar) and foreign cash earnings, and in addition it produces over 90% of the national food requirements (IMF, 1999, Salopek, 2003, Aggeb, 1999; Europa World, 1998). Therefore, productivity and efficiency of the agricultural sector are central to any programme of economic recovery (Abdalla, 2001; Ahmed, 2003).

The remarkable agricultural feature in Sudan is the Gezira Scheme. The Gezira Scheme is the largest agricultural irrigated scheme in the Sudan responsible for the production of the major crops in the country particularly cotton which is the main export crop produced and supplemented with sorghum, groundnuts, wheat and rice. Few agricultural ventures in the developing world have evoked as much international attention as Sudan’s Gezira Scheme.

The United Nations FAO has estimated that wheat and sorghum output in 2000 was about 60% and 24% below the previous five years’ average respectively and that the overall aggregate production of cereals estimated at 3.14 million tonnes represents a drop of some 39% from the previous year (FAO, 2000). Recent estimates from FAO (2006) suggest a better overall wheat harvest than has been reported in the last few years (2002–2006) due to the good performance in North State. However the overall average cereal production in Sudan over the last five years (2001–2005) is calculated to be 52% higher than the figures for 2000 (MAF, 2006).

In the past food shortages have been bridged, to some extend, by purchases and by food aid, but neither of these options will offer adequate relief in the future. Sudanese agriculture is generally characterised by low productivity and high costs of production. Main causal factors include: absence of strategic orientation to achieve agricultural development; lack of improved technological packages due to low investment in research and


technology transfer; lack of credit; poor infrastructure; poor access to marketing services and uncertain land use rights.

Sudan also possesses a large population of livestock, the second largest in Africa. Livestock is raised primarily under the pastoral system. It contributes significantly to food security but its potential has not been utilised effectively. Enhancement of the role of livestock in food security could be realised by control of epidemic diseases, increased off-take so as to ease pressure on pastures, restocking of small ruminants in drought- stricken areas, involving communities and the private sector in the delivery of veterinary services and improving pasture and communal grasing lands.

The current government has made grand claims about self-sufficiency, declaring “we eat what we grow, wear what we manufacture”, but the reality for most Sudanese people has been food prices soaring way beyond their reach, and dwindling productivity. In the towns, food may be available, but many people are unemployed, and none of who can afford the price increase. However, it is often observed that Sudan is prone to drought and famine and that there is little that can be done to prevent either, however, it is poverty not drought that results in famine. During the 1970–1990, Sudan experienced severe food shortages and famines and for a country known for its vast agricultural resources, this is both unfortunate and ironic, this is basically because of political reasons. Therefore, in the absence of a comprehensive food security strategy, food security policies are short term and ad hoc, focusing on emergencies and disaster management and lacking harmonisation between the various actors.

Meanwhile, food markets play a vital role in connecting producers and consumers through different levels of markets and intermediaries. However, the efficiency of the food marketing chain is jeopardised by many constraints including the lack of accurate marketing information, long distances between production and consumption areas, limited railway capacity and reliance on road transport with high costs, inadequate storage capacity and imposition of many types of taxes and levies by state authorities. Extreme fluctuations in food prices could be reduced effectively if a comprehensive policy package to strengthen the role of private markets were introduced.


3 Objectives

Viewed from the holistic perspective of availability, accessibility, stability and utilisation, these four factors in achieving food security are closely interrelated and must be considered together. Therefore, in this book, the term Food Security will be defined to include all times availability and accessibility (physical, social and economical) to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets people dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.

At present, three forms of food insecurity can be identified at a household level in Sudan: chronic food insecurity caused by long-term unfavourable agro-climatic conditions of drought and desertification; transient food insecurity due to recurrent drought and conflict in the south and lately in Darfur, disrupting agricultural production and affecting the livelihoods of millions of people who ultimately become Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) or refugees and creeping food insecurity resulting from gradually deteriorating economic conditions of some segments of the population, namely rural-urban migrants, limited income government employees and pensioners.

Given the nature of the problems/issues discussed above, five fundamental research objectives are addressed:

1 How do we define food security in the context of Sudan? Therefore, the research must

a identify causes of food insecurity in Sudan

b assess the capacity building of government institutions on food security

c analyse existing food security policies in Sudan.

2 Is there adequate and easily assessable information on food security in Sudan? To examine this, there is a need to

a assess the strength and weaknesses of information and data collection on food security and the existing market information system

b identify gaps in the early warning system of impending food security disasters.


3 Does the implementation system (government policies and strategies) fail to recognise the fundamental economic constraints facing food security in Sudan? A diagnostic procedure is needed to

a conduct critical analysis of the role, management and policy establishing the strategic reserve

b recommend policies on predicting long-term trends and productivity in the context of disaster management

c analyse the capacity to forecast yield and crop production and identify the gaps

d analyse livestock and pasture conditions as part of food security

e analyse current strategy to stabilise prices

f identify the problems of access to food by the poor

g study distribution, transportation and storage of food and their impact on food security.

4 Can food aid provide a long and lasting solution to food security in Sudan? This requires

a study food aid and dependency in Sudan and recommend policies to reduce dependency

b analyse policies on relief and development and food self-sufficiency

c propose strategy on strengthening traditional coping mechanisms

d assess different Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) related to food security in Sudan.

5 Are all the above key determinants of food insecurity in Sudan?

a This will be answered in a form of conclusions and key recommendation.


4 Research method

This book is based on participatory and action-oriented research undertaken in Sudan 2005–2006. It is beyond doubt that analysis of the different issues associated with food security is a very complicated and multidisciplinary one and therefore it is very important that the right methods of research to be used. Several methods have been considered for collecting primary data for this study.

A focus group was considered at the first instance but was later decided that it will not be feasible to do so in all parts of the country particularly war-affected areas such as Darfur. There were problems in getting the necessary people to meet at one place at a particular time!

A semi-structured and in-depth interview were looked into and after contacting different stakeholders it was understood to be too much time consuming as these people were very hard to get hold of and on most occasions unwilling to spare.

After careful consideration of all methods, taking into account the limitations with each, it was decided that it will most appropriate to adopt all these methods together for this study as any one of the above alone will not provide full answers under the current situation in Sudan.

The observation strategy used was ‘Participation Observation’, in particular the role of a Complete Observer. This means the researcher’s identity is concealed (see Saunders, 2003). This process involves both primary observation – where the researcher notes what happened or what was said at the time and also involves secondary observation – where it involves observers’ interpretations and more emphasis on discovering the meanings that people attach to their actions.

4.1 Survey design

A series of detailed (interview-based) surveys were implemented in order to generate the data required to identify and assess stakeholders’ experiences, roles, attitudes and approaches for achieving food security in the Sudan as well as their linkages with other UN agencies such as WFP, FAO, UNDP,


UNICEF, … etc. The qualitative data from the different initial focus group interviews were used extensively in the design of the final survey questions. Most of the questions in the survey were in relation to the institution efficiency and effectiveness in achieving the overall government food security policy as well as the linkages with other partners. Examples of the questions asked within these interviews include: To what extent did your work resulted in achieving food security and/or enabling other institutions to achieve their goals?, What are the five most important issues upon which you prioritise? And Have you changed you priorities as a result of the current food situation in the country?

4.2 Sampling structure

The survey covers all stakeholders in the Sudan. All states that are directly or indirectly involved with food security in the Sudan have been visited, however particular focus and considerations have been given to the following states: • Khartoum State. Include the capital Khartoum and all key

ministries and international agencies offices. • Gadaref State. East Sudan. Very famous for high

agricultural productivity and therefore having food surplus. • Gezira State. Central Sudan. Include the largest agricultural

irrigated scheme in the country and all over Africa. The remarkable agricultural feature in Sudan is the Gezira Scheme. This 70-years old Scheme (over 2 million acres), is seen by some as the first demonstration of Sudan’s vast potential as an Arab and world granary. Also there is the Head Quarter of the Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC) which is considered the oldest agricultural research institution in Africa and the major research institution in the Sudan responsible for almost all of the agricultural research in the country. The overall goal of ARC is to find ways to increase the productivity of specific crop and livestock species, while maintaining soil, water and vegetation as renewable resources. ARC accounts for nearly half the country’s agricultural research capacity in terms of full-time equivalent researchers.


• North and Southern Kordofan States. Western Sudan. Have experienced several food shortages in the past and currently the Darfur crisis. Darfur crisis took an international dimension when over 100,000 Sudanese refugees flooded Chadian borders. In September 2004 the WHO reported that 6000–10,000 people were dying each month in Darfur due to diarrhoea and violence. This was 3–6 times higher than the normal African death rate.

• South Sudan (Rumbek and Juba). The North-South Sudan conflict started on the eve of the country’s independence and continued for the following five decades with a break only for the period 1972–1983. Fortunately, the North-South Sudan conflict was terminated in 2005 by a peace agreement giving self-determination to the South in six years period.

4.3 Data collection

The study is carried out in seven phases:

Phase I. Building on a comprehensive review of the relevant literature, a number of key databases were used to extract published and comparative data focused on agricultural productivity, food security, government policies, etc. During the study all relevant literature was gathered from all different ministries, research institutions, universities, UN agencies, projects sites, etc.

Phase II. Contact with relevant domestic institutions and representatives of the donor community. One hundred and twenty interviews (see Appendix 1) were successfully conducted with different stakeholders and 64 sites (see Appendix 2) were visited all over the Sudan. However it is important to note that there were times when notes were hard to take and so they were noted at a later stage particularly in war-affected areas and some parts in Darfur.


Phase III. The primary data collection is based on field work undertaken in Sudan between January 2005 and May 2006 with field trips to Gadaref, Gezira, Northern Kordofan and Southern Kordofan States, Rumbek and Juba. The field trips consist of participant observation, interviews with different stakeholders all over Sudan and meetings with officials and relevant focus groups.

Phase IV. During the study, time was allocated for checking and clarifying the completed interview, correcting any information or descriptions while they were fresh in the memory as well as gathering all relevant literature. After incorporating corrections, six researchers from the Ministry of Agriculture were interviewed for pre-testing of the informal interviews. The final version of the interview questions were then produced accordingly and data was then gathered from the different stakeholders as designed.

Phase V. Non-parametric statistical methods were applied to the large data set in order to produce deeper insights into the economic, technical and social variables generated in the survey. Results of the surveys were transcribed and analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). This computer software provided data analysis by utilising an approach similar to factor analysis for organising and identifying qualitative data by frequencies, means, variables, cross-tabulations, commonality and other linear regression modelling considerations.

Phase VI. Discussion and presentation of the first draft report in a workshop.

Phase VII. Final draft, incorporating substantative changes proposed by the workshop. This book has eight chapters:

• Chapter 1 provides a background to the study including background about Sudan, objectives of the research and the research method used.

• Chapter 2 provides conceptual aspects of food security and the causes and consequences of food insecurity in Sudan.


• Chapter 3 reviews recent national food security strategies and policies and current national and regional initiatives addressing food security.

• Chapter 4 discusses the role of domestic food production in food security.

• Chapter 5 describes the structure, performance and revitalisation of food security institutions as well as examining food security information inconsistency, capacity to forecast yield and crop production and recommendations for improving prediction of productivity and production.

• Chapter 6 addresses food supply chain in Sudan and the strategic grain reserve policies.

• Chapter 7 discusses food insecurity coping mechanisms at household and national levels and the dynamic nature of coping strategies with more emphasis on the role of food aid in relief and development.

• Chapter 8 provides summary of key conclusions and recommendations.

4.4 Limitations of the research method

The data gathering period is considered one of the limitations as a longer period with the different stakeholders and building trust with them would enable better and more reliable data collection. Furthermore, selecting areas of different distances from information sources would also improve the quality of the data and make it more representative than the study data which is collected from areas which are generally considered nearer to the information and finance sources.

4.5 Summary

In this chapter, backgrounds to the study, the nature of the research method and the specific research questions to be investigated have been outlined. In the next chapter, we will explore the literature surrounding food security and analyse the causes and consequences of food insecurity in Sudan.



Chapter 2: Concept of food security

1 Defining food security

Food security has evolved over time as an operational concept in public policy reflecting the wider recognition of the complexities of the technical and policy issues involved (FAO, 2003). The initial focus, reflecting the global concerns expressed in the World Food Conference of 1974, was on the volume and stability of food supplies. Food security was defined as

“availability at all times of adequate world food supplies of basic foodstuffs to sustain a steady expansion of food consumption and to offset fluctuations in production and prices.” (UN, 1975)

In 1993, the FAO expanded its concept to include securing access by vulnerable people to available supplies, implying that attention should be balanced between the demand and supply sides of the food security equation, “ensuring that all people at all times have both physical and economic access to the basic food that they need” (FAO, 1983).

In 1986, the World Bank published its highly influential report ‘Poverty and Hunger’ (World Bank, 1986), which focused on the widely accepted distinction between chronic food insecurity, associated with problems of continuing or structural poverty and low incomes, and transitory food insecurity, which involved periods of intensified pressure caused by natural disasters, economic collapse or conflicts. A third type of food insecurity has been identified as creeping food insecurity (Zziwa, 2003). This is the situation where a community faces slow but sure deteriorating ecological and/or socio-economic conditions resulting in the increasing incidence of under– and mal-nourishment. On the basis of these distinctions, the concept of food security is further elaborated to denote: “Access of all people at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life.”

The 1996 World Food Summit adopted a still more complex definition:

14 2. Concept of food security

“Food security, at the individual, household, national, regional and global levels (achieved) when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.” (FAO, 1996)

This definition was broadened to incorporate food safety and nutritional balance, underscoring the importance of food composition and minor nutrient requirements needed for an active and healthy life. An important aspect of access to food is food utilisation. Food utilisation, as reflected in the nutritional status of an individual, is determined by the quantity and quality of dietary intake, general child care and feeding practices along with health status and its determinants (Rieley et al., 1999).

2 Problems of access to food by the poor

This new emphasis on consumption, the demand side, and the issues of access by vulnerable people to food is a major lesson which has resulted from hunger experienced by low income food deficit countries during the last three decades. Experience in Africa has shown that the availability of ample food stocks at a national level by itself is not a guarantee of food security for every household. Famines occurred in the past not because there were no food supplies in the country, but because certain segments of the population did not have entitlement or economic access to food (Sen, 1981). Sen further argued that the quality of food that a household is entitled to is related to the physical, human and social resources (capital) owned by the household members. The entitlement that a household can have to food depends on its possession of physical capital (land, animals, machinery, irrigation facilities, etc.), human capital (i.e., labour, technical skills, health, information) and social capital (extended family, ethnic, communal, political, religious relations), or a combination of them (Tollens, 1998).


3 Access to food as a human right

With the globalisation of economic, social and political issues which used to be treated as national problems in the past, access to food has become a human rights issue. The right to food is a binding obligation well-established under International Law, and recognised inter alia in the Declaration on Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights as well as a number of other legal instruments and numerous national constitutions. In response to a request from the World Food Summit, the Committee on Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations defined the right to food as

“the right of every man, woman and child, alone and in community with others, to physical and economic access at all times to quantitatively adequate food or means for its procurement in ways consistent with human dignity and cultural traditions of the people to which the consumer belongs.” (UN, 2002)

The right to food implies three types of obligations on signatories of the Covenant:

• the obligation not to take any measures that result in preventing access to food

• the obligation to ensure that enterprises or individuals do not deprive others of their access to adequate food

• the obligation to pro-actively engage in activities intended to strengthen people’s access to and utilisation of resources and means to ensure their livelihood, including food security.

In addition, whenever an individual or group is unable to enjoy the right to adequate food by the means at their disposal, states have an obligation to fulfil that right directly. However, knowing the limited means and resources owned by low income food deficit countries, it would be unrealistic to expect them to meet this obligation without assistance from the international donor community. Therefore, the right to food should be looked on as a national as well as an international obligation.

As a human right, food security has to be guaranteed at all levels: individual, household, regional, country and global.


At an individual level, the feeling of food insecurity and the decisions which an individual must take to lessen its adverse effects is a matter of perception. A food insecure person is one whose survival is at risk because he or she cannot procure his or her basic food requirements during a critical time horizon. One is secure if one is guaranteed the amount of food which satisfies one’s short and medium term requirements (Mohamed and Zziwa, 2004). This brings in the concept of stability of supply and prices of major food items, which is an essential element of food security.

From a national perspective, food security does not mean self-sufficiency. It means self-reliance, i.e., adopting appropriate policies which create incentives for domestic production and marketing of food on the basis of technical and economic feasibility while developing the capacity of the country to import food to bridge any food gaps that might arise due to emergency situations such as droughts, floods, wars, pest outbreaks, etc.

From a household perspective, food security refers to the ability of individual households to meet their food needs through subsistence production or through purchase from the market.

4 Incidence of food insecurity in Sudan

With a total area of 2.5 million square kilometers, Sudan is the largest country in Africa. The cultivable area is estimated at 86 million hectares out of which only 20% is utilised in crop production under three major farming systems:

• traditional rainfed agro-pastoral system

• semi-mechanised rainfed system

• irrigated system.

The agricultural sector provides livelihoods for about 70% of the population, mostly in the traditional agro-pastoral system.

Sudan is divided into six main ecological zones as shown in Table 1. From Table 1, it can be seen that over 70% of Sudan’s area is vulnerable at varying degrees to arid conditions. This observation coupled with the fact that 90% of the cultivated area is rainfed, shows that food production involves risks and


uncertainties which must be reduced if the state of food security is to be improved.

Table 1 Main ecological zones in Sudan

Ecological zone Annual rainfall

(mm) Total area

(%) Degree of desertification

Desert 0–75 26.9 Complete Semi-desert 75–300 18.4 High effect

of desert creep Savannah (sand) low rainfall

300–400 9.8 Moderate effect of desert creep

Savannah (clay) low rainfall

400–900 17.4 Limited effect of desert creep

Savannah high rainfall 800–1300 10.6 Weak effect Swamp area 800–1000 11.6 No effect Mountainous Variable 5.4 No effect

Source: Arab centre for the study of arid and dry lands (2005)

At present three forms of food insecurity occur at a household level in Sudan as follows:

• Chronic food insecurity is caused by the unfavourable agro-climatic conditions of drought and desertification. The regions most affected by chronic food insecurity are the Red Sea and the northern parts of North Kordofan and North Darfur. In these areas the scanty rainfall does not sustain crop production or pasture. Most people lack resources to enable them to access food from the market. Thus, they become dependent on food aid for survival.

• Transient food insecurity occurs mostly as a result of recurrent droughts. Conflicts in the south and recently in Darfur have also contributed to food insecurity by disrupting agricultural production and adversely affecting the livelihoods of millions of people who ultimately became internally displaced or refugees. Conflicts have also had an adverse effect on food security by diverting resources from development to military expenditure and by destroying rural infrastructure and preventing relief from reaching vulnerable populations.


• Creeping food insecurity resulting from declining standards of living of some segments of the population, mostly poor rural-urban migrants, the unemployed and limited income government employees and pensioners.

There is no reliable official information to help estimate the magnitude of the problem of food insecurity. The only source of such information is the annual FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission’s figures, on the basis of which food aid is estimated. The Mission estimated that in 2004 there were 3.6 million beneficiaries, i.e., 11% of the population who needed food assistance amounting to 249,278 tonnes (Table 2), an increase of 7% in the number of beneficiaries and 25% in food needs when compared to 2003. This increase in food assistance, despite a bumper crop and a relatively peaceful environment elsewhere, is largely attributed to the escalation of civil conflicts in the three Darfur States, where massive displacement of over a million people has occurred and access to food sharply curtailed (FAO/WFP, 2004). The Mission estimated that in Northern Sudan 1.96 million people are expected to need 177,688 tonnes of food aid. However, the three Darfur States have accounted for about 79% of the total food assistance requested for the sector. The remaining 21% will be used to improve the nutritional status of the malnourished and sustain the livelihoods of approximately 0.78 million people elsewhere in the country.

In southern Sudan an estimated 1.64 million people were in need of 71,900 tonnes of food assistance.

According to the ANA (2006), the food insecure population in Sudan can be divided into three groups – namely, internally displaced, vulnerable residents and returnees. The internally displaced are that part of the population who were forced to leave their places of origin and resettle, either in a camp or non-camp environment, and either because of civil war in the South or, more recently, the Darfur conflict. This group is most vulnerable since they have very limited access to land or other opportunities for making a livelihood while competing with local communities for the limited natural resources and livelihood sources. The second group is vulnerable residents. These individuals may not have been directly affected by the conflict, but may experience indirect effects such as disruption of


livelihood due to insecurity that constrains mobility or access to agricultural fields and markets and closure of routes that reduces inward and outward supply of commodities. This category also includes people who have been experiencing chronic food insecurity caused by long-term structural problems and climatic variations such as in the Red Sea State. The third group is Returnees. The signing of the CPA and the expectation that the peace agreement implementation will provide new economic opportunities has encouraged many Sudanese displaced and refugees to return.

Table 2 Sudan: WFP estimated emergency food aid needs in 2004

ANA estimates for 2003π

ANA estimates for 2004

Percent change 2003–2004

Region or state Beneficiaries

Food needs

(tonnes) Beneficiaries

Food needs

(tonnes) Beneficiaries

Food needs

(tonnes)

White Nile 9140 494 10755 428 18% –13% Darfur, South 157499 13896 339787 37175 116% 168% Darfur, North 318879 13991 285583 37467 –10% 168% Darfur, West 0 0 556800 65943 – – Kassala state 54815 6737 86956 60002 59% –11% Red Sea 256000 25176 165900 5664 –35% –78% Kordofan, North 98340 4315 0 0 –100% –100% Kordofan, West 170165 6156 16535 527 –90% 91 Nuba mountains 290496 12742 225860 7963 –22% –38% Jongelei and Corridors

217768 12156 161469 5719 –26% –53%

Greater Bahr El Gazal

911013 44126 628136 628136 –31% –30%

Greater upper Nile

698941 45138 574592 574592 –18% –44%

Equatoria 170356 12411 370021 370021 117% 55% Blue Nile 30000 2263 181539 182539 505% 200% Total 3383412 199601 3603324 3605324 7% 25%

Source: WFP

As depicted in Table 3 the total number of beneficiaries in 2006 is estimated at 6.71 million and the total food aid distributed is 800,000 tonnes. The Darfur region accounts for


66% of total food aid (530,000 tonnes) and 45% of the number of beneficiaries. The highly vulnerable groups represent half of the total number of beneficiaries followed by the IDPs (32%). Eighty-six percentage of the aid is directly related to post-war effects in the south and most recently, the conflict in Darfur.

Table 3 Sudan total number of beneficiaries by type and region and the amount of food aid (2006)

Beneficiary type Darfur East South

Abyei S Kordofan Blue Nile Others Total Percentage

IDPS 1550 75 350 95 95 2165 32

Returnees 0 0 500 395 895 13

Highly vulnerable residents

1450 245 1250 300 105 3350 50

Contingency 0 0 0 0 300 300 4

Total beneficiaries (000)

3000 320 2100 790 500 6710 100

Beneficiaries (%) 45 5 31 12 7 100

Food aid (000 tonnes)

530 20 160 66 24 800

Food aid (%) 66 3 20 8 3

Source: CFSAM (2006)

As shown in Figure 1 the amount of food aid has been increased from 199,601 tonnes in 2003 to 836,826 tonnes in 2005. On the other hand, the number of beneficiaries increased from 3,338,341 in 2003 to 6,549,283 in 2005, i.e., an increase of 94%. However, in 2006 the emergency food requirements for Sudan decrease relative to those of 2005 (Figure 1). The reduction in the over-all level of food assistance to Sudan in 2006 is mainly due to the good harvest of the 2005 or 2006 season, to the extent that the country is able to meet its entire cereal requirement (ANA, 2006).

Household food supplies are highly uncertain in conflict situations, as armed conflict has its direct effect on food security components, namely availability, accessibility, stability and utilisation (Figure 2). In armed conflict areas, farms and rural


assets and infrastructure are damaged, agricultural production falls because of lack of inputs and extension services, food processing, storage and distribution systems are destroyed and incomes decrease while prices rise. Displacement or death of rural people, lack of energy for work and the physical danger of working on the land (including the risk of land-mines) prevent cultivation and harvesting of crops and use of pasture and water wells for livestock. Effective interventions require information on nutritional status and mortality, household food insecurity, morbidity patterns and caring practices. Emergency feeding programs should be part of relief and rehabilitation programs aimed at strengthening the resilience of households and rural economies (Hussain and Herens, 2006). More efforts and resources should be concentrated on conflict resolution to prevent such situations from occurring. Resolving the Darfur conflict is expected to result in a huge reduction in the amount of food aid required by the country and in improving the food and nutrition security situation in the country.

Figure 1 Comparative trend analysis of the WFP food assistance in Sudan (2003–2006)


Figure 2 How armed conflict affects food and nutrition security Sudan food balance

Source: Hussain and Herens (2006)

Sudan achieves a high degree of self-sufficiency in staple crops (sorghum, millet and wheat) in most years, except in drought years such as 2000/2001, when domestically available food grains were 58% of total utilisation (Table 4). Import requirements averaged 16.5% of total utilisation but showed an increasing trend. This increasing trend in import requirements of grain is largely due to the increase in demand for wheat resulting from change in tastes due to rapid urbanisation and the increase in incomes of urban consumers.

Import requirements are met from food assistance, (which is expected to show a downward trend after peace has been achieved) and more importantly, from commercial imports. Thanks to oil exports, the capacity of Sudan to import food has improved significantly since 1999 (Table 5). However, a rapidly increasing import bill is a cause for concern because food is competing for foreign exchange with other financing needs in the post war era, including recovery, development and debt services.


Table 4 Sudan Food Grain Balance (1995/1996 – 2003/2004) (000 tonnes)

1995/1996

1996/1997

1997/1998

1998/1999

1999/2000

2000/2001

2001/2002

2003/2004

2005/2006

A. Domestic availability

5674 5596 5598 7351 4471 3393 4916 6478 5476

Production 5408 5330 4457 6515 3899 3331 4810 6328 5291 Opening stocks 266 266 1141 841 572 62 106 150 185 Availability as percentage of total utilisation

92 94 89 92 86 58 81 81 80

B. Total utilisation

6185 5991 6165 8026 5189 4835 6099 7707 6804

Food use 4219 3978 4477 4645 4204 4371 4460 4795 5254 Feed use 300 208 260 530 240 200 400 513 482 Other uses 600 546 507 870 409 264 348 729 629 Exports (mostly sorghum)

100 593 80 980 0 0 100 300 50

Closing stocks 966 666 841 1001 336 0 791 1370 396 C. Import requirements

511 395 567 675 718 1442 1183 1229 1328

Commercial imports (mostly wheat)

496 321 509 675 718 1230 n.a n.a n.a

Food aid pledged 15 74 58 – – 55 n.a n.a n.a Uncovered deficit – – – – – 157 n.a n.a n.a Import requirements as percentage of total utilisation

8 6 11 8 14 42 24 19 20

Source: Reports of FAO/WFP Crop and food supply assessment mission to Sudan

Table 5 Indicators of food import capacity

Food imports as percentage of total exports of goods and services (US$ million)

Year Food imports (1) Total exports (2) (1) as percentage of (2) 1995 144.0 555.7 25.9 1996 158.5 620.2 25.5 1997 187.5 594.2 31.5 1998 212.3 595.7 35.6


Table 5 Indicators of food import capacity (continued)

Food imports as percentage of total exports of goods and services (US$ million)

Year Food imports (1) Total exports (2) (1) as percentage of (2) 1999 223.3 780.1 28.6 2000 296.9 1806.7 16.4 2001 259.4 1698.7 15.2 2002 393.8 1949.1 20.2 2003 370.8 2542.2 14.6 2004 452.7 3777.8 12

Source: Based on data from Bank of Sudan – annual reports

During the period 1995–1996 – 1999–2000 cereal imports were less than 12% of total utilisation (Figure 3). This was attributed to good weather conditions which resulted in good harvests of sorghum and millet. The sharp increase in food imports in 2000–2001 was due to low rainfall and hence poor grain harvest.

Figure 3 Cereal import as percentage of the total utilisation

5 The need for a holistic approach

Food security is a multi-faceted concept which comprises four components: production, storage, purchase and consumption and


food aid. Any serious food security strategy must deal with these components in a harmonised way. Institutions dealing with different components must coordinate their plans and policies to maximise synergy and achieve the desired objectives.

5.1 Production

The agricultural sector has an important role to play in achieving food security by increasing food production and providing employment opportunities in rural areas. This requires investment in the production of improved technology and building up of the capacity of smallholders through training, credit provision, dissemination of market information and improving physical marketing infrastructure.

5.2 Food storage

Storage is key to food security. Farmers use traditional methods of storage such as ground pits to store their grain requirements for the whole year. These traditional methods should be improved to avoid losses which are estimated at 30%. Merchants use warehouses to store grain for domestic trade and for export. The Agricultural Bank of Sudan has two silos: one in Gadaref and another in Port Sudan with a storage capacity of 100,000 tonnes. These silos are used by the ABS for its commercial operations and can also be rented to grain importers and exporters. The third type of storage is the Strategic Grain Reserve operated by the government. The objective is to build up a reserve of 600,000 tonnes of grain (equivalent to three months’ consumption) to be distributed to vulnerable groups during periods of disaster.

5.3 Food purchase and consumption

A key factor affecting household food security is the ability to purchase food from the market. To compensate for poor harvests following drought, poor households look for other sources of income such as raising ruminants or poultry, tapping of gum Arabic, handicrafts, receiving remittances from relatives, etc.,


and food-for-work programs or employment in agricultural schemes may also provide a dignified access to food.

5.4 Food aid

Countries facing food deficits request food aid from donor countries. However, food aid has the negative effect of competing with local production and dampening local markets in the long run. Among donors there is now a growing recognition of this problem and there is a tendency to encourage procurement of food from local sources. Sourcing food locally will provide the essential market and price support that farmers need to boost agricultural production.



Chapter 3: Food security policies

1 Introduction

The performance of Sudan’s economy during the 1970s and 1980s was adversely affected by a number of exogenous and endogenous factors which were responsible for low rates of growth in the economy. The most important exogenous factors were the civil war in the south, climatic changes, including two major droughts (1973/1974 and 1984/1985), desertification, floods and the inflow of refugees from neighbouring countries. The most important endogenous factors were the ill-conceived macroeconomic policies which led to the imbalance between aggregate supply and demand, high inflation rates and an over-valued currency (Osman, 2001). In the final analysis, the environment created by these distortions was not conducive to production and exports. Rather than achieving self-sufficiency in major food commodities as envisaged, the food import bill increased steadily. It was against this background that the government introduced the National Economic Salvation Program (NESP) and the Comprehensive National Strategy (CNS) in 1990 and 1992, respectively.

2 Food security within the framework of economic adjustment

The NESP and CNS were designed to achieve the following objectives:

• Arrest the deterioration of the economy and lay the foundation for a sound recovery to put the economy on a path of sustained growth and financial stability. The revitalisation of the economy was to be realised mainly through massive investment in agriculture to achieve self-sufficiency in food and increase exports.

28 3. Food security policies

• Rationalise public and private consumption through appropriate financial and monetary polices.

• Liberalise trade through deregulation of prices and abolition of export licensing.

• Privatise state-owned enterprises and support the role of the private sector.

• Introduce institutional and legal reforms in the areas of taxation, customs duties, prices and profits with the objective of creating a more efficient system of resource allocation.

• Reform the credit system to reallocate credit to productive sectors (agriculture and industry) as a national priority.

Specific macro and sectoral policies were introduced to promote agricultural development and food security. On the macro side the main policies were:

• unification of the exchange rate

• reduction of taxes on imports and exports

• removal of subsidies on the prices of sugar and petroleum products and a substantial reduction of the subsidy on bread.

Specific policies targeting the agricultural sector were introduced including enhancing food security and promoting exports through:

• Unification of agricultural taxes into one tax under the name ‘market tax’ which was fixed at 5% for crops produced under irrigation systems and 10% for crops produced under rainfed conditions. Prior to this, taxes on agricultural commodities amounted to about 32%. However this did not include Zakat, an Islamic tax, which is fixed at 10% for crops produced under rainfall and 2.5% for irrigated crops.

• Establishment of a strategic grain reserve. A procurement price for sorghum was determined on the basis of ‘Salam price’ for the purpose of securing finance from the banks. Salam is an Islamic version of finance whereby the farmer sells in advance part or all of the crop he intends to grow at a price determined by the Agricultural Bank. The farmers use


the money for purchasing inputs, hiring labour and carrying out other production operations.

• In the early 1990s the Government adopted a food security policy according to which the area under sorghum and wheat was increased substantially in the irrigated sector at the expense of cotton and groundnuts. Prices of wheat were fixed on the basis of negotiations involving the Farmers’ Union, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Finance and National Economy, and the Union of Grain Millers. The price was determined taking into consideration the cost of production, a reasonable profit margin and the international export parity price.

The macro economic adjustment programs implemented within the framework of the NESP and the CNS induced rapid economic rates of growth and enhanced overall national food security (self-sufficiency in wheat reached 85% in 1993). However, the program led to serious setbacks, including three-digit inflation and an over-valued currency.

To stop the deterioration of socio-economic conditions, a program for economic reform and structural adjustment was implemented in 1996. The main objectives of this program were:

• balancing aggregate demand and aggregate supply

• determination of the optimal level of liquidity conducive to stability and growth

• control and rationalisation of public expenditure.

This program succeeded in curbing inflation, stabilising the exchange rate and achieving an average modest growth rate of 6.1% during the 1990s (Osman, 2001). However, by giving agriculture a low priority in public expenditure, the program failed to tap the great potential of the agricultural sector for high and sustainable levels of growth, poverty reduction and food security. Nevertheless, this sector which had been growing at 10.8% during 1990/1999 was a major contributor to the growth achieved mainly through the high growth rate of rainfed traditional crops (24.6%) and livestock (15.9%). On the other hand, the irrigated crops and semi-mechanised rainfed crops grew at 6.6 and –6.7%, respectively.


The impressive performance of traditional and livestock sub-sectors was due to favourable weather conditions rather than an improved policy environment. In fact fiscal and monetary policies were biased against the agricultural sector. Public actual recurrent and capital expenditures on agricultural services (including irrigation services) were low by the standards of similar countries, averaging 3.3% of GDP and 10% of total public expenditure, respectively (World Bank, 2003).

Investment on agricultural research, estimated at 0.04% of total public investment (Taha and Faki, 2004) was also very low in comparison with similar countries.

The agricultural sector also suffered from unfavourable credit policies. Following economic liberalisation policies, the Bank of Sudan cancelled the policy under the NESP assigning 50% of the credit ceiling of commercial banks to the agricultural sector. Due to the high risk in agriculture, commercial banks limited their lending to the agricultural sector and the amount of credit actually borrowed by the agricultural sector declined steadily, reaching 11% in 2003 (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Finance of agriculture by commercial banks as percentage of finance of all sectors

Source: Bank of Sudan reports

Out of the limited amount of credit allocated to agriculture, only a small proportion trickled down to small farmers in traditional and semi-mechanised rainfed sectors. Table 1 shows the distribution of lending to the agricultural sector from 2000 to 2002. On average, two-thirds of the credit disbursed by the Agricultural Bank of Sudan over the three years was for the


irrigated sector. The 36% disbursed to semi-mechanised rainfed sectors went mainly to large farmers with farm sizes greater than 500 feddans. Small farmers (with holdings less than 500 feddans) who cultivated about 50% of the acreage in the semi-mechanised rainfed sector received a limited amount of credit directly from the Agricultural Bank because they were short of guarantees acceptable to the bank. It is a well known practice that small farmers resort to borrowing from big farmers at a much higher cost of financing than that charged by the bank.

Table 1 Annual disbursement by the agricultural bank in main farming systems for the period 2000–2002 (in million SD unless otherwise indicated)

Average Farming system 2000 2001 2002 SD Percentage Traditional rainfed 0.54 0.33 0.55 0.47 8.9 Semi-mechanised rainfed 0.82 1.61 1.37 1.27 36.4 Irrigated 1.72 3.27 5.47 3.49 66.7 Total 2.28 5.21 7.39 5.23 100.0

Source: Agricultural Bank of Sudan

The prospects of improving the availability of credit to small-scale farmers are limited without government guarantees. Traditional farmers and small farmers in the semi-mechanised sector are risky clients for credit because of their unpredictable environment, low and fluctuating yields, remote location and inadequate structures for marketing and support services. Nevertheless, small farmers would have substantial potential if it were possible to increase average farm size, improve technology, access to credit and provide better infrastructure such as roads and domestic water supply (Elbashir et al., 2004).

3 Recent national policy initiatives on food security

Current government policy emphasises food security as a national priority. This focus on food security is expressed in the Medium Term Economic Program, and in efforts exerted


to reach the MDGs, and in legislative and institutional reforms as outlined below:

3.1 The Long-Term Agricultural Development Strategy (LTADS) (2004–2027)

The LTADS includes a stock taking of the natural resources base in Sudan and emphasises the leading role of the agricultural sector in the Sudanese economy. The Strategy reviews the performance of the different agricultural sub-sectors during the National Comprehensive Strategy (1992–2002) – the achievement, the shortfalls and the constraints. The Strategy specifies increasing agricultural incomes and employment, promoting food security, reducing poverty, increasing agricultural exports and strengthening linkages with other sectors as its main objectives. A set of macroeconomic and sectoral policies have been adopted as a prerequisite for the success of the strategy.

With respect to the objectives of food security, the strategy aims at securing food for all in sufficient quantities, of nutritious value, safe and at prices accessible to the poorer segments of the population. The Strategy also strives to contribute to closing the food gap at regional and global levels. To fulfil these objectives the following package of policies will be put in place:

• implementation of sound economic policies which will create incentives to farmers to increase production and help to reduce inter-seasonal fluctuations in the supply of staple commodities

• increasing the production and productivity of crops through adoption of improved technologies

• empowering small scale farmers to access land and production inputs

• increasing area and yield of wheat with a view to achieving self-sufficiency based on economic feasibility

• expansion of area and increasing of yield of horticultural crops


• increasing the production of poultry and fish meat

• achieving self-sufficiency in milk

• raising public awareness on nutritional issues and promotion of nutritious and high value food items

• strengthening of the Strategic Food Reserve Authority to enhance food security and stabilise food supply.

3.2 The medium term economic program (2004–2009)

The Medium Term Economic Program (MTEP) has been developed by the Ministry of Finance and National Economy in collaboration with all sectoral ministries concerned. The MTEP consists of a wide range of policies in all sectors. Since food security is a cross-cutting issue, appropriate policies to address it have been designed in all relevant sectors as follows:

3.2.1 Public expenditure

• Monitoring the strategic grain reserve with a view to closing food gaps and stabilising food prices

• Increasing financial allocations for supporting social programs, poverty reduction programs and voluntary programs

• allocation of more resources for social development programs and programs on basic and development services, with emphasis on rural areas, war-affected and poverty stricken areas.

3.2.2 The agricultural sector

Emphasis on the traditional rainfed sector with a view to promoting the integration of activities related to crops, animals, fisheries, forestry, rural industries, environment and culture through:

• construction of rural roads and storage facilities and organisation of markets


• provision of technological packages including improved seeds, applied research, extension, training and information

• development of agricultural financing modalities and establishment of public and private rural microfinance institutions and distribution of the branches of the agricultural Bank and other specialised banks in rural areas to finance production and service activities at low cost and easy terms

• scaling-up the agricultural insurance system

• developing modalities of implementation of integrated rural development programs in coordination with the federal, state and local authorities to ensure the achievement of the objectives of these programs

• continuing to improve the infrastructure of permanent, flood and supplementary irrigation

• increasing veterinary quarantine services, controlling of epidemic diseases, improving the genetic stock of the national herd, supporting livestock research and providing water for livestock

• sustainable development of renewable natural resources and resolution of conflicts over resources.

3.2.3 Infrastructure

• Construction of rural roads to promote agricultural production, marketing distribution and investment

• Expand the communication network in rural areas

• Complete the construction of existing national roads and rehabilitation of railways, airports and river ports

• Upgrade and renew storage capacities with regard to food security

• Rehabilitate irrigation infrastructure and networks, and upscale water harvesting activities in rural areas


• Review laws regulating land ownership and leases in accordance with the comprehensive peace agreement.

3.2.4 Social policies

• Improving social and human indicators especially for education, health, drinking water and housing in fulfilment of the MDGs

• Development of voluntary work through building up the capacities of national NGOs to address issues of poverty, provide essential services for orphans and poor families and cope with natural disasters.

3.2.5 Basic services

• Provision of basic services in the areas of preventive medicine and primary health care and control of endemic diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and contagious diseases especially in very poor areas and areas affected by war, and reduction of malnutrition and child mortality

• Give priority to vocational, technical and professional training

• Emphasise basic education and eradication of illiteracy

• Emphasise provision of safe drinking water.

3.2.6 Interim poverty reduction strategy

• Continuation of the program of macroeconomic stability and sustainable growth in pro-poor sectors

• Development of the agricultural sector with special emphasis on the traditional rainfed sector within the context of pro-poor policies and the participatory and integrated rural development approach

• Integration of cross-cutting issues: gender, environment, employment, awareness raising, capacity building and participatory approach and empowering of local communities


• Strengthening of institutional legal and organisational structures and increasing transparency with a view to improving the availability and equitable distribution of services.

3.3 Millennium development goals

At the United Nations Millennium Summit in September 2000, world leaders agreed to a set of time-bound and measurable goals and targets for combating major problems confronting humanity including poverty, hunger and environmental degradation (UNDP, 2000). Goals and targets would be monitored at country level by governments, the private sector and civil society, and globally by UN specialist agencies.

Food security is a major challenge in Sudan to be addressed as part of the transition from humanitarian relief to local production and market orientation in the south, and in disadvantaged regions of the north. Measuring MDG achievement in food security is made using poverty incidence and prevalence of child malnutrition (Table 2).

Table 2 Meeting food security and environmental MDGs in Sudan

North South

Poverty and Hunger 1999/2000

(%) 2015

targets (%)1999/2000

2015 targets (%)

Estimated poverty incidence (Percentage of total population)

50–90 25–45 90 45

Prevalence child malnutrition (under wt. for age; Percentage under 5)

35 16 48 24

Prevalence acute child malnutrition (under wt for height; Percentage under 5)

16 8 21 11

Access to an improved water source (Percentage of population)

70 85 27 64

Access to improved sanitation (Percentage of population)

64 82 15 58

Source: Joint Assessment Mission, March (2005b)


Malnutrition is strongly associated with structural and transitory poverty, insecurity and lack of access to services such as safe water and health care (JAM, 2005a).

3.4 Strategy for self-sufficiency in wheat production

Sudan places a strong emphasis on the need to realise self-sufficiency in wheat production because of a high annual import bill of US$ 250 million. In March 2003, the Council of Ministers approved a strategy for self-sufficiency in support of which the following arguments were advanced:

• The expected increase in food dumping in the domestic market from developed countries who will continue to subsidise their own wheat farmers in different ways. This will result in loss of jobs, food insecurity and increased poverty in rural wheat producing areas and an increasing trend of rural-urban migration with all the associated undesirable consequences of unemployment, poor social services, crimes, etc.

• The continuing reduction in tariffs and increased market access which will be brought about by the WTO agreements will ultimately result in the decrease of commodity production (e.g., wheat, maize, etc.) in main producing countries. This will result in the reduction of supplies and an increase in world market prices. On the other hand, the reduction in supplies will result in a reduction of stocks. This will induce instability in the prices of staple commodities and would have a negative effect on the flow of food to low income food deficit countries, including Sudan.

• Unfortunately the new rules governing international trade do not guarantee staple food supplies to food deficit countries. A special WTO ministerial decision was signed in Marrakech in April 1994 in which signatories promised to help those countries hurt by any rise in the world price and consequent increased expenditure on food imports which may result from the implementation of the agreement. In practice, developed countries so far did not comply with the Marrakech Decision. For instance, despite near doubling


of grain prices in 1995/1996, developed countries showed little interest in offering extra help to needy countries.

• The Agricultural Research Corporation (ARC) has exerted continuous efforts during the last few decades with a view to adapting wheat to the different ecological zones in Sudan. As a result of these efforts wheat production has been established in the central and eastern parts of the country as a competitive crop. Improvement in productivity and quality has been achieved in these areas as well as in the north where wheat production has a long history.

• Sudan enjoys a comparative advantage in wheat production. Farmers in the northern and central parts of the country have acquired a long experience in wheat cultivation. The crop occupies the land for three months only and uses irrigation water which has zero opportunity cost.

• A recent study by Faki (2004) evaluated the average yields and returns on the investment in improved technologies in demonstration fields in five main wheat producing areas during a period of ten years (1985/1986 – 1994/1995). The study has concluded that wheat produced locally is reasonably competitive in all producing areas compared to wheat imported if a tariff rate of 23% is imposed on wheat imports.

However, Sudan is in accession to becoming a WTO member. Sudan has submitted its comprehensive offer and is preparing for tough negotiations ahead. Until the Sudan deal is agreed upon with other trading partners, it is difficult to assess what impact such a deal will have on national wheat production.

3.5 Legislations promoting food security

Recently, the government passed two laws which could have a profound impact on food security: The Gezira Act, 2005 and the Rural Development, Food Security and Poverty Alleviation Act, 2005.


3.5.1 The Gezira Scheme act 2005

The Act is a legal document intended to enhance the process of privatising the Gezira Scheme with the ultimate goal of improving the socio-economic conditions of farmers through sustainable use of resources and empowering of farmers and the private sector.

The following issues are addressed in the Act: • The stakeholders in the Gezira Scheme are:

• The farmers. • The government: responsible for the management of the

scheme, indicative planning and provision of technical services, e.g., irrigation, applied research and extension, crop protection, etc.

• The private sector: provides supporting goods and services.

3.5.2 Objectives of the Act • Optimal use of resources of the scheme to increase

farmers’ incomes and the contribution of the scheme to agricultural GDP

• Achievement of national objectives: food security, employment generation, export promotion and introduction of agro-industries

• Maintaining environmentally-friendly practices within the scheme

• Allowing farmers the freedom of choice of crops, and ways and means of accessing economic services, subject to technical constraints

• The right of farmers to manage irrigation operations at the level of the minor canals through water user associations.

3.5.3 Land reform

Before this law became effective, 55% of the land in the Gezira Scheme belonged to the government and 45% was owned by farmers. The government paid a negligible rent to farmers and


controlled and distributed the land under the scheme (2.1 million feddan) among farmers within the boundaries of the scheme. Over time tenants expressed their grievances towards the prevailing land tenure system. The main complaints focused on the low fixed rent and the lack of real tradable land ownership rights. Under the new law, the government is obliged to:

• register tenancies allocated to tenants who owned lands before the establishment of the scheme as freehold

• register tenancies allocated to farmers who did not enjoy property rights prior to the establishment of the scheme as long-term ownership for 99 years.

The law gives the owner of the tenancy the right of disposal through sale and mortgage in accordance with guidelines to be drafted by the Board of Directors of the scheme.

By establishing ownership rights, giving farmers the freedom of choice of crops and opening up the goods and services markets for competition by the private sector, the new institutional reforms create incentives for the diversification and increase of production of food and cash crops.

The government took the first step in implementing these reforms by appointing a Board of Directors for the scheme which consists of representative stakeholders including farmers. What is needed is a three-year action program for implementation of the reforms. At the end of the period, the plan should be evaluated to assess the impact of the reforms on productivity, employment, poverty reduction and resource management. The implementation of reforms in the other irrigated schemes should benefit from evaluation of the experience of the Gezira scheme and lessons which can be drawn from it.

3.6 The rural development, food security and Poverty Alleviation Act 2005

The government passed the Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation Act in 2005. The objective of this Act is to enhance Sudan’s economic and social development through the formulation and implementation of a comprehensive rural development, poverty reduction and food security policies.


The Act is formulated to utilise various types of support, subsidies and payments in the rural sector permitted under the WTO regime and in line with Sudan’s long-term Agricultural Development Strategy (2003–2028) and its Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy (IPRS).

3.6.1 The act emphasises the following points with regard to food security

• The food security policy shall aim at securing all aspects of availability, accessibility and affordability and may secure that operations related to these aspects shall be conducted on such non-trade measures as the Minister of Finance may decide.

• The Minister of Agriculture in consultation with the Minister of Finance and the Southern Sudan Government and the States Governments, as the case may be, may designate from time to time an appropriate number of foodstuffs for the purpose of securing food security compatible with the needs and customs of the relevant communities.

• The Minister of Finance, in consultation with the Minister of Agriculture, may stock-hold reserves intended for food security at administrative prices and may designate from time to time floor prices for such stockholding operations. The Minister of Finance likewise may use appropriate administrative non-market prices and distribution measures to ensure accessibility and affordability of basic foodstuffs and the prices.

• Support for major stakeholders of food products in rural areas, development of research and training on food storage, and traditional ways of conserving foodstuffs, with special emphasis on rural women.

• Reform and enforce the existing Early Warning System and improve food security data and information mechanisms.

• Facilitate the operation of food aid and distribution of foodstuffs.


3.6.2 Regarding poverty alleviation, the Act emphasises the following actions

• Take necessary measures in favour of low-income or resource-poor producers including investment subsidies, agricultural input subsidies and measures to encourage diversification away from growing narcotic crops

• Take measures intended for producers’ income support emergency and disaster relief and for ‘Counter cyclical payments’

• Take necessary actions to enforce implementation of Sudan’s commitment within the Millennium Development Goals to reduce poverty incidence by half by 2015, award financial assistance to advance diversification of farm and off-farm enterprises and similar actions that lead to expanding rural employment and incomes

• Provide financial assistance to homeless children, widowed women and war-affected female-headed households

• Ensure government provision of basic education and primary health

• provide special attention and care for women’s needs in consultation with women’s groups and assistance to grass-root organisations that aim to reduce poverty.

• Conduct and monitor the following programs:

• nutrition program and bonuses for states that demonstrate high performance in nutrition programs

• encouragement of payment of child support programs

• commodity supplemented food and commodity distribution and use of approved food safety technology programs and emergency food assistance.

This Act is an indication of the commitment of the government toward food security. The Act provides an instrument for intervention in market operations to enhance food security of the vulnerable groups using special exemptions and treatments allowed by the WTO regime recognising the vital role of


the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests in the availability of food through increasing productivity and production. The Act established a ministerial committee for food security and designated the Minister of Agriculture as a focal Minister entrusted with implementation of the Act in collaboration with the Minister of Finance and other relevant ministers. To resolve any conflicts that may arise between line ministries and to place food security high up on the national agenda, the ministerial committee on food security should be one of the institutions under the auspices of the President as specified by Presidential Decree No. 34 for 2005.

3.7 The 10-year plan of action: women in agriculture and food security in Sudan

The ten-year (1995–2005) Plan of Action – Women in Agriculture and Food Security in Sudan is an attempt to reorient and increase support provided to women farmers. Eight priority areas were identified in the plan: • improving the legal and attitudinal atmosphere to enable

women to contribute to and benefit from agricultural development and increase food production

• establishment of women in agricultural development units and networks within government and non-government institutions involved in assessing women in agriculture and establish collaboration among all institutions concerned

• establishing and capacity building of women in agricultural groups and networks

• improving women’s food production/food security capacities • improving women’s income-earning capacities • supporting women’s activities regarding environmental

protection • reorienting agricultural education to include women in

agriculture and food security concerns • reorienting agricultural extension and research to ensure that

the concerns of women in agriculture and food security are addressed.


Women in Sudan are and always have been extensively involved in agriculture and food security. With regional differences, women constitute from 50% to 80% of the agricultural labour in rural areas. Women are farmers in their own right. On average, they represent about 49% and 57% respectively of the farmers in the irrigated and rainfed sub-sectors (Hamada, 1997). In the Northern region, women tend livestock, undertake post-harvest operations and agricultural processing within the confines of their homes. In irrigated schemes, female seasonal labour is the mainstay of cotton picking and weeding (MOAF, 1995). In the traditional rainfed areas of Western and Southern Sudan, women are responsible for household food security. In fact there is a high correlation between the contribution of women to the agricultural sector and food production and security. Unfortunately this role is not well documented.

The implication of this drawback is the need to acknowledge the role of gender in policy formulation. Bypassing women in the process of planning and implementation of projects may result in poor targeting of women and may fail to integrate them as active participants in the development process.

3.8 Land policies

According to the Unregistered Land Act of 1970, all unregistered land is owned by the government. Private land registered before 1970 is limited to agricultural land along the Nile and areas along other water courses, which account for about 1% of all land. However, individuals can obtain leases of government land and assume usufruct rights. The current land policy is one of the major constraints to agricultural development due to the absence of undisputed property rights.

To ensure the formulation and implementation of comprehensive sound land policies, the Joint Assessment Mission (JAM) has developed an action plan to meet the target of the CPA. The action plan covers the period 2006–2011. It includes the establishment of national and state land commissions, review of relevant land laws, assessment of the impact of current laws and practices and submission of recommendations on reforms of land policies. Table 3 shows the process for developing and amending the relevant land laws.


Table 3 Process for developing and amending the relevant land laws

3.9 National grazing policy

The management of natural pastures used to be undertaken by traditional leaders of the pastoral tribes. However, the abolition


of the traditional pastoral administration in 1971 resulted in the loss of the production of natural grazing resources (Zarug, 1996). This decision created serious disadvantages including:

• Change from communal grazing controlled by tribes to common grazing open to all. This resulted in misuse of grazing and lack of interest in sustainability of these resources.

• From a legal point of view grazing areas became free to be accessed at no costs.

• Some tribes entered grazing areas which used to be the exclusive domains of other tribes. This has led to increased pressure on and competition for grazing and water resources.

Fundamental changes in national grazing policies are required to address the following issues:

• developing policy guidelines concerning establishment of grazing rights of pastoralists over areas utilised by their animals and the protection of marginal areas from misuse and overgrazing

• designation of certain grazing areas to homogenous pastoral tribal users committed to sustainable development of grazing resources and the development of livestock

• introducing long lease contracts for individuals, groups and companies to establish cooperative and group grazing farms.

3.10 Nutritional policies

Food security means having access to enough food to stay healthy. An emergency becomes a food crisis if people, for whatever reason, do not have enough food to stay healthy and active (Oxfam, 2006).

There is a direct interlink between food security and nutrition. A well nourished, healthy labour force is a requirement for economic and social development. Nutritional status is recognised globally as a key indicator of food security and national development.


In Sudan, agriculture and its interrelated activities represent the main sources of food, employment and income. Thus a direct investment in improving the nutritional status of the rural population is likely to have a significant pay-off by raising labour productivity and incomes. On the other hand, nutritional information is crucial for determining the crops to be grown in any particular area and the type of food required in case of disaster.

The Sudan government and its concerned partners strive to improve the nutritional status for the population of the whole country so as to maximise the contribution to economic growth and to promote personal well-being. This can be done successfully by:

• Challenging the food and trade sectors to make healthy and affordable food products available to all. This can be achieved by encouraging the institutions concerned, such as health, and education sectors as well as media to instruct and advocate for appropriate diet.

• Ensuring adequate and skilled staff in the health services sector (MOH, 2006).

For the realisation of these outcomes, the Federal Ministry of Health has proposed a National Nutritional Policy and Strategic Plan for Sudan for 2006–2011. The main objectives of this policy are: • reverse the deterioration in nutritional status among various

population groups of all ages and gradually improve it • increase skills and develop adequate programs to sustain

short-term improvements brought about by emergency interventions

• expand nutrition resources for states and local-level activities • coordinate between the actors across the sectors • mainstream nutritional status as a key development

indicator.

The 5-year strategy (2006–2011) for implementing Sudan’s nutritional policy consists of three strands, one focusing on the health sector, which holds the nutritional mandate. The second


strand addresses collaboration and coordination among the actors concerned. The third addresses the human resources development to guide and coordinate the implementation of the first two strands (MOH, 2006). Moreover, detailed strategies, rationales and key sector involvement in implementing Sudan nutritional policies are proposed in the study.

4 Food Security policies of the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS)

The Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) was formed recently following the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and the Interim Constitution of the GOSS (ICGOSS). It is now in the process of formulating the policies of the different sectors of the economy based on the CPA and the ICGOSS.

Based on several informal interviews with ministers involved with food security, the following are the ingredients of the food security policy.

4.1 Agriculture

• Formulation of the GOSS food security committee (Council) to be chaired by the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry. Membership of the committee will include the under-secretaries of the ministries concerned

• Establishment of food security committees in the states headed by the Ministers of Agriculture in the states.

• Establishment of food stores in all states and harmonisation of interstate relationships.

• Establishment of an early warning system.

• Following the principle of comparative advantage, i.e., each area will produce what it can do best and then exchange with other areas.


• GOSS will provide financial services (opening of the Agricultural Bank of Sudan, Southern Sector) and farming equipment.

• Establishment of group farming for better services, e.g., tractor services.

• Formulation of land use policies.

• The role of international organisations and NGOs will be to promote production and productivity by providing inputs, training and local purchase of food from food surplus areas and distribution in deficit areas.

• Food targeting of the vulnerable groups (IDPS, Returnees, School children).

• Asset creation, e.g., repairing of roads, and preferably payment in cash rather than in kind so as to decrease food aid dependency and not to distort local food markets.

• Development of appropriate technology, e.g., drought resistant crops.

• All NGOs are directed to register with the Judiciary and the Department of Planning and Monitoring in the GOSS Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (GOSS MOAF). NGOs are required to abide by government policies. At the end of each year the GOSS MOAF will issue a certificate of performance, based on which the NGOs will be able to obtain finance from donors.

4.2 The livestock sector

• Control of epidemic diseases, e.g., apply procedures of the International Office of Epizootics (IOE), in collaboration with the Ministry of Animal Resources and Fisheries in the North, to declare all of Sudan free of Rinderpest by 2008

• Resolution of conflicts between pastoralists and agriculturalists in pasture areas, opening up routes between internal markets in the South and between the South and the North


• Promote livestock trade across borders

• Involvement of the community in the provision of veterinary services and encouragement of the NGOs to continue what they are doing in this respect

• Development of a breeding program to improve the quality of local breeds

• Encouragement of the private sector to develop pilot dairy and poultry farms around large towns

• Improve the market for animal products

• Development of the fishing industry through

• developing fishing methods

• promoting cold storage and transportation

• encouraging the private sector to establish processing plants

• supporting small fishermen through micro-credit and training.

4.3 Promoting food trade

• Repair of roads, railway and river transport.

• Development and circulation of market information.

• Development of the private sector.

• Building up the capacity of southern traders.

• Establishment of five trade points in coordination with the Ministry of Foreign Trade in the North. The objective is to obtain information on international and regional markets and advertise products.

4.4 Role of international organisations and NGOs in food security in Southern Sudan

The WFP and FAO play an important role in food security in Southern Sudan. The WFP assists in:


• food distribution to vulnerable groups (IDPS, Returnees, etc.) and establishing feeding centres

• the school feeding program • building of roads through the food-for-work program • supporting market development through local purchase of

food supplies • food security information (crop assessment and annual need

assessment).

While appreciating the emergency assistance given by the WFP, GOSS ministers pointed to an urgent need for close coordination of the WFP and other donors with the GOSS in determining the kinds and location of humanitarian assistance required. This is intended to improve targeting and cost effectiveness.

From a development perspective, ministers expect donors to take into consideration GOSS food security strategies. One important medium- and long-term food security strategy is self-reliance which consists of two components: boosting local food production where comparative advantage exists, and market development. The WFP could support this strategy through local purchase of food from surplus areas such as West Equatoria and distribution in deficit areas such as Bahar El Jebel and Lake States, and through stepping up of the road construction program to enhance market development.

The FAO contributes to food security technically as follows: • supports and facilitates starting people’s livelihoods as

follows: • distribution of seeds and hand tools • control of livestock diseases.

• food security information (crop assessment and livelihood analysis)

• supports government policies, e.g. land use.

With respect to the FAO program two criticisms were raised by GOSS officials:


• Seeds and tools are delivered too late. The rainy season usually starts April–May and inputs should be delivered by the end of February.

• The population which benefited from the FAO program last season was only 18% of the target group. Coverage should not be less than 80% and should be well targeted.

NGOs concerned with food security, such as Action Faim (ACF), Norwegian Church Aid (NCA), the Swedish Free Mission (SFM), Sudan Aid, Oxfam GB and the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC), play important roles in food security.

NGOs work according to the geographical location. They receive finance from donors and international organisations (such as the WFP, FAO, etc.) and implement programs at the grassroots. The Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SRRC) organises monthly meetings for all NGOs in Southern Sudan for the purpose of coordination, i.e., who is doing what, where and when. On the other hand, the GOSS MOAF organises monthly meetings for those NGOs concerned with food security for the purposes of monitoring and evaluation. NGOs are involved in a wide spectrum of activities related to food security, including:

• distribution of seeds and hand tools, and tractor services

• animal restocking and provision of veterinary services

• assisting and coordinating with the WFP and FAO on crop assessment

• fruit tree planting

• animal traction

• establishment of marketing cooperatives and village groups

• extension services and technical training.



Chapter 4: The role of domestic food production in food security

1 Introduction

Agriculture is Sudan’s most important economic sector in terms of its contribution to both GDP and employment. In 2003 agriculture directly accounted for 45.6% of the GDP (Bank of Sudan, 2003). The sector also provides about 80% of the country’s exports (excluding petroleum) and contributes to the livelihood of 80% of its population (Elbashir and Ahmed, 2006). The agricultural sector is the source of raw materials for agro-processing industries in the country including textiles, sugar, vegetable oils, soap factories, grain mills, dairies, tanneries, saw mills, etc., which contribute 17% of the GDP and some 20% of foreign exchange earnings (Sudanagric, 2002).

Sudan depends on its agricultural production for the supply of food for its population. As can be seen from Table 1, Sudan is self-sufficient in most food commodities. The exception is cereals of which Sudan produces 85% of its requirements. The shortfall in cereals is basically due to wheat, of which the country produces only 29% of its total requirements and depends on imports to close the gap.

Although analysis of food security often encompasses cereals being the main source of energy, other commodities such as livestock and livestock products, fruits, vegetables, pulses and fish play an important role in household food security, directly by contributing to household diet or indirectly as a source of income which could be used to buy food and other necessities.

Agriculture in Sudan depends on two principal sources of water: rainfall and irrigation, principally from the Nile and its tributaries. There are also flood irrigation schemes fed by seasonal rivers in the eastern part of the country in the Gash and Toker deltas. There are five distinct sub-sectors of Sudanese agriculture, namely, modern irrigated farming, semi-mechanised

54 4. The role of domestic food production in food security

rainfed crop production, traditional rainfed farming, livestock and forestry (Ahmed, 2004).

Table 1 The contribution of domestic agricultural production to food supply in Sudan (2003) (Quantity in 000 tonnes)

Food item Production Available for consumption

Self-sufficiency ratio (%)

Cereals (total) 5994.00 7008.00 85.50

Wheat and flour 398.00 1368.00 29.00

Potatoes (total) 301.00 301.00 100.00

Pulses (total) 176.50 228.30 77.30

Vegetables (total) 2593.87 2596.81 99.89

Fruit (total) 1972.90 1976.54 99.82

Sugar (refined) 662.40 654.57 101.20

Fats and oils (total) 502.32 496.06 101.26

Meat (total) 1698.00 1690.09 100.47

Fish 65.00 63.45 102.44

Milk and dairy products 7344.00 7422.74 98.94

Source: AOAD (2004)

2 Sudan agricultural resources

Sudan has a wide and diversified national agricultural resource base. The renewable agricultural resource base includes climate, soils, water and biodiversity. Sudan’s multivariate ecological zones provide for a variety of crops and farming systems, vegetational cover, livestock production and forestry. Out of the 86 million hectares of arable land, only 18 million are now utilised. Current water resources available annually are estimated at 31.5 billion cubic meters consisting of:

• 20.5 billion cubic meters (measured at Sennar) from the Nile based on the 1959 Nile Waters agreement

• 7 billion cubic meters from annual streams


• 4 billion cubic meters from underground water

• Over and above, rainfall represents a major source of water in the main producing areas ranging from 450 mms in central Sudan to over 1000 mm in Western Equatoria (MOAF, 2003).

In spite of these potentials Sudan has been experiencing shortages of food in some years resulting in high food prices and reduced access of the vulnerable groups to food. The inability of Sudan to produce enough food to feed its population in a sustainable manner is due to the low efficiency in using its natural resources. This inefficiency is indicated by the low productivity achieved in Sudan compared to other producing countries. Figure 1 shows average productivity of sorghum in Sudan compared to some countries. The low level of productivity and production is experienced in all sub-sectors especially in traditional and semi-mechanised rainfed sub-sectors. Section 3 discusses the constraints behind low productivity and production in different farming systems and suggests recommendations

Figure 1 Average sorghum productivity in sudan compared to other countries (Kg/Feddan)

Source: Taha and Faki (2004)


3 Farming systems

3.1 The irrigated sub-sector

This sub-sector includes 2 million hectares, with irrigation water coming mainly from the Nile and its tributaries through gravity from dams, pump-lifting from rivers and flood irrigation from the Gash and Tokar rivers. Some limited areas are irrigated by underground water. The Gezira Scheme represents half the irrigated area. The other major irrigated schemes include Rahad, New Halfa and Suki which add 300,000 hectares (Sudanagric, 2002).

The main crops grown in the irrigated sub-sector are cotton, sorghum, groundnuts, wheat, sugarcane, legumes, vegetables and fodder. The sub-sector contributes an average of 21% of the total value of agricultural production (World Bank, 2003).

Table 2 shows area production and yield of staple crops produced in the irrigated sub-sector namely, sorghum, wheat and millet. The sector contributes 100% of wheat and 25% of sorghum produced in the country. Although its contribution to sorghum production is low relative to the rainfed sub-sector, it is however more stable. In years of drought it plays an important role in meeting consumption requirements.

Table 2 Irrigated sub-sector: cereal crop area, production and yield (area in 000 feddan, production in 000 tonnes, Yield in Kg/feddan)

Sorghum Wheat Millet

Area Production Yield Area Production Yield Area Production Yield

1990 898 493 549 1100 686 623 0 0 0

1991 1312 851 649 907 833 933 7 2 225

1992 1051 711 658 767 440 552 11 4 360

1993 816 548 672 851 475 558 2 1 300

1994 1061 655 617 658 445 675 10 2 180

1995 692 491 710 691 520 753 10 2 225

1996 840 862 1017 777 628 809 20 2 200

1997 789 645 817 599 582 646 1 1 200

1998 847 521 952 329 169 405 13 2 200


Table 2 Irrigated sub-sector: cereal crop area, production and yield (area in 000 feddan, production in 000 tonnes, Yield in Kg/feddan) (continued)

Sorghum Wheat Millet


1999 799 548 686 212 211 995 5 1 270

2000 988 871 882 284 299 1075 7 2 270

2001 1743 1640 903 267 243 991 7 2 270

2002 1067 874 856 313 326 1079 13 3 270

2003 1017 686 740 426 395 977 18 2 135

2004 949 775 873 379 434 982 11 2 150

Average 991 733 772 571 446 804 9 2 217

Source: MAOF (2002, 2005)

The main constraints limiting development of the irrigated sub-sector are:

• unsettled land rights (with the exception of Gezira)

• low crop yields

• limited crop choice

• poor quality and extent of regular annual maintenance of irrigation canals and control structures

• poor water management resulting in huge water losses

• inadequate financial and marketing services.

It is widely believed that the productivity of the Gezira scheme (and other agricultural schemes) as well as the livelihood of those who depend on it could be substantially improved if farmers had greater responsibilities in land use, in the technology which they adopt and in sourcing inputs, provided that they have privileged access to good extension services, reliable water supply and the marketing information system.

The FAO has granted technical assistance to financing the piloting of these concepts under a project entitled “Raising Productivity through Broadening Farmers’ Choice on Farming Systems and Water Management” (see Box 1).


Box 1

TCP/SUD/0065

Gezira irrigated scheme:

Raising productivity through broadening farmer’s choice on farming systems and water management

Out of 118 blocks constituting the Gezira Scheme (GS), the Abdelhakam Block in the Center Group was selected as a site for this project, covering an area of 670 ha, with 671 tenants. The project established Farmers Field Schools (FFS) through which a training program was conducted. An intensive participatory training extension program was initiated for the summer/winter season (2000/2001). In the summer/winter season (2001/2002), a range of initiatives was introduced to increase cropping intensity, broaden farmer’s choice in cropping patterns, initiate a saving and credit system for better input supplies and establish Minor Canal Committees (MCC) along the minor canals. Farmers are expected to assume greater responsibility in the operations and maintenance of the minor irrigation system.

The table below shows the yield of sorghum and wheat in the pilot project in comparison with average productivity in the scheme.

Comparison between food crops (Sorghum and Wheat) average yield (Tonne/Feddan) achieved in the pilot block and the average yield obtained at the scheme levels in seasons (1999/2000 – 2001/2002)

1999/2000 2000/2001 Increase (%)

Sorghum Abdelhakam 0.5 1.23 146% Gezira scheme 0.65 0.95 46%

± (%) 29% 30%

Wheat Abdelhakam 0.2 0.95 375% Gezira scheme 0.5 0.7 40%

± (%) 60% 36%

Source: Kambal (2003)


3.2 The semi-mechanised rainfed sub-sector

The semi-mechanised rainfed sub-sector was started in the mid 1940s on a limited scale in the vicinity of Gadaref. With time, the semi-mechanised area has increased to about 6 million hectares located in the areas of Gadaref, Blue Nile, Sennar, Kosti, Renk and Dilling (Sudanagric, 2002).

The two main crops produced in this sub-sector are sorghum and sesame. Table 3 shows the area, production and yield of the two staple crops, sorghum and millet, grown in this sub-sector. The three variables vary from one year to another depending on rainfall, availability of formal credit and the level of prices in the previous season. Semi-mechanised farming is the main producer of sorghum, producing 65% of the total production. It plays a major role in determining whether the country enjoys a food surplus or suffers a food deficit in any one season.

Table 3 Semi-mechanised sub-sector: cereal crop area, production and yield (area in 000 feddan, Production in 000 tonnes, Yield in Kg/feddan)

Sorghum Millet Area Production Yield Area Production Yield

1990 7371 540 132 33 5 200 1991 11277 2428 265 183 25 184 1992 12270 2687 268 224 47 249 1993 10631 1473 187 206 27 166 1994 11921 2044 210 98 10 132 1995 8998 1395 184 73 8 138 1996 11666 2388 231 200 27 161 1997 10620 1477 181 137 18 173 1998 10550 2428 274 163 29 213 1999 6512 746 152 209 32 168 2000 7360 880 180 196 22 185 2001 9220 1420 213 157 18 153 2002 9624 1000 153 273 24 147 2003 10608 2254 240 572 81 168 2004 8488 974 200 169 12 124 Average 9808 1609 205 193 26 171

Source: MOAF (2002, 2005)


The sub-sector suffers from a number of limiting factors:

• low yields due to use of traditional varieties and cultural practices

• high cost of production

• shortage of formal credit

• poor infrastructure including feeder roads and water points

• absence of machinery services for small farmers

• poor access to marketing services

• horizontal expansion and clearing of trees resulting in land degradation

• uncertain land use rights.

The increase of productivity in the semi-mechanised rainfed sub-sector is considered crucial for sustainable development of this sub-sector. The Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development (AAAID) has carried out a pilot project for increasing productivity of crops in the rainfed sub-sector using zero-tillage operation as an alternative to the current traditional systems of cultivation in Sudan. The results have proved that sorghum productivity would be increased 4.8 times that using traditional systems (See Box 2).

Box 2 AAAID experiment comparing zero-tillage cultivation as an alternative to the current traditional cultivation system in the rainfed sub-sector

• The concept of the system. Zero-tillage involves direct seeding of crops without mechanical disturbance of the soil, with application of herbicides before and during sowing and during the different stages of growth.

• Sorghum technological package. It includes control of weeds before sowing, sowing in straight lines with addition of fertiliser and insecticides, control of weeds after germination and combined harvesting.


Box 2 AAAID experiment comparing zero-tillage cultivation as an alternative to the current traditional cultivation system in the rainfed sub-sector (continued)

• Transfer of zero-tillage cultivation to rainfed sub-sector farmers. AAAID introduced the new technology through two programs, one for traditional small farmers and another for traditional large farmers. In the traditional small farmers’ program, ten farmers participated and ten feddans were allocated to each. Farmers used improved hand tools and a knapsack. Each farmer cultivated NINE feddans using the new sowing technique, and all inputs were provided (seeds, fertiliser and herbicides).

In the large farmers’ program 4 farmers participated; each was provided with 300–400 feddans, a planter, sprayer and shielded sprayer and mechanical harvesting. The participant farmers achieved 4–5 times the yield obtained under the current traditional system as shown in the table below. However, the adoption of this system may be discouraged by the high cost of inputs and by the risk of losses in years of drought. To overcome these problems credit should be provided together with crop insurance.

Comparison between productivity (Kg/Feddan) achieved using zero-tillage and traditional cultivation systems

Zero-tillage cultivation system

Productivity Small farmer Large farmer

Traditional cultivation

system Sorghum 1000–1600 1200–1400 150–300

Source: Rasheed et al. (2005)

3.3 The traditional rainfed sub-sector

The traditional rainfed sub-sector is about 9 million hectares in area, located in the western, central and southern parts of Sudan. The main crops include sorghum, millet, groundnuts, sesame and short staple cotton. The sub-sector contributes about 90% of total millet, 48% of groundnuts, 28% of sesame, 11% of sorghum and 100% of gum Arabic (Sudanagric, 2002). Table 4 shows the area, production and yield of food crops grown in the traditional sub-sector.


Table 4 Traditional rainfed sub-sector: cereal crop area, production and yield (area in 000 feddan, production in 000 tonnes, Yield in Kg/feddan)

Sorghum Millet Wheat


1990 3190 124 79 4250 80 52 0 0 0

1991 3130 267 167 5250 281 11 10 5 907

1992 4565 286 167 6006 398 113 10 5 797

1993 3450 311 132 6366 193 81 0 0 891

1994 5358 878 200 9962 961 126 7 3 703

1995 4858 542 147 8047 373 66 23 7 720

1996 6334 903 202 8272 411 111 32 14 777

1997 5432 652 195 10218 624 95 14 3 632

1998 5823 1179 230 9436 639 99 10 3 395

1999 5980 1022 203 7994 465 97 8 3 236

2000 5468 706 173 8289 458 90 10 3 284

2001 6923 1590 295 9668 558 84 10 4 500

2002 7645 951 185 9037 554 107 8 6 800

2003 8324 1750 246 9734 759 114 6 3 500

2004 6124 929 215 6816 266 71 4 1 500

Average 5507 806 189 7956 468 88 10 4 517

Source: MOAF (2002, 2005)

Certain constraints limit the contribution of this sub-sector to household and national food security:

• low productivity resulting from use of traditional technology

• lack of rural saving and credit institutions

• marketing bottlenecks

• inadequate research and extension services

• poor services for women • inadequate infrastructure • inadequate safe water.


Recently some attempts have been made to explore the potential of increasing the productivity of this important sub-sector. For instance, FAO has implemented a pilot program, under its Special Program for Food Security (SPFS), for increasing productivity of the Gardood soils in Northern Kordofan using water harvesting techniques. The percentage increase in yield of the new technology over the traditional was 1455% for sorghum, 290% for sesame and 433% for groundnut (See Box 3).

Box 3 FAO Special Programs for Food Security (SPFS)

Objectives of the SPFS. The SPFS aims at developing poor and low income areas which experience a continuous deficit in food over the years with a view to improving the food security situation in these areas through increasing production of food and its stability and safety, and increasing the opportunities of access to food through increasing income by adopting a participatory approach and an integrated package of technologies and policies.

Program components. The program is in two stages:

Stage one consists of four integrated components

• improve management of water resources with the objective of improving irrigation techniques and introduction of methods of harvesting and optimum use of rainfall water

• intensification of agricultural production systems by using improved techniques for the realisation of higher proceeds

• diversification of production activities with the objective of increasing household income

• analysis of economic and social constraints with the objective of overcoming them; assistance in establishment of micro-finance linked with financial institutions; organisation of beneficiaries into groups and committees with the aim of building their capacity through training and acquiring of necessary skills.

Stage two. it is an expansion phase: dissemination of good results and overcoming shortcomings through appropriate agricultural policies and adoption of an investment program in infrastructure.


Box 3 FAO Special Programs for Food Security (SPFS) (continued)

Achievements:

• water harvesting and distribution over an area of 23,000 feddans in Northern Kordofan

• implementation of an integrated and interdependent package of crop intensification including land preparation in each area according to the system of agriculture and type of irrigation in that area; adoption of improved seeds and recommended cultural practices including integrated pest management and management of harvesting and post harvesting operations.

Comparison of productivity (Kg/feddan) of some Crops in the program area in North Kordofan, 2004/2005

Crop Traditional Water harvesting Sorghum 45 655 Sesame 55 160 Groundnut 180 780

Source: MOAF

3.4 The livestock sub-sector

Sudan ranks first in the Arab world and second in Africa as far as animal resources are concerned. Development of this sub-sector aims at raising the standard of living and promoting food security by providing meat, dairy products and eggs for the local market and export.

Sudan possesses a huge and varied wealth of animal resources, ranging from domesticated livestock species to wild and aquatic life which contributes significantly to food security and to the national economy. Livestock accounts for about 20–22% of Sudan’s GDP and 53–56% of the agricultural GDP. Sudan is self-sufficient in meat, hides and skins.

Livestock in Sudan is produced under two main systems. The traditional and the improved modernised systems. The traditional system is further divided into four sub-systems, namely, pastoralist nomadic, transhumance, sedentary and semi-secondary and intra-urban backyard sub-systems.


The pastoralist sub-system depends on the rangelands such that animals move to areas where feed and water are available. Pastoralist nomads are concentrated in Darfur and Kordofan. The groups in this sub-system own 80–90% of the total number of cattle, 100% of camels, 80% of sheep and 60% of goats in the country. The transhumance sub-system is found in Southern Sudan where herdsmen move away during flood times and return during the receding period. Sedentary and semi-sedentary sub-systems are practiced in both rainfed agriculture and irrigated agriculture.

In the rainfed agriculture, the owners send their animals with nomads to feed on agricultural by-products in the area, while in the irrigated agriculture, owners keep small ruminants as a source of supplementary financial support. Owners keep milking the animals and sending dry ones with pastoralist nomads.

Goats and poultry are used for domestic purposes in the intra-urban backyard sub-system.

The improved mechanised system is divided into three sub-systems:

• Integrated intensive livestock/crop production, in which intensive dairy production is practiced using irrigated fodder and concentrates. This sub-system is expected to play a major role in the future in the supply of milk and meat in the country.

• Commercial production sub-system which includes: milk cooperatives, specialised large dairy enterprises and individuals who own high producing milking cows; feedlots for fattening cattle and sheep and poultry production business around the towns.

• Traditional sub-system in which animals are raised on natural ranges (MET, 2000).

As shown in Table 5, livestock numbers grew at an average rate of 5% annually during the period 1992–2004. However, the per capita consumption of milk in Sudan is only 50% of that recommended by the FAO (Table 6). This low milk consumption is largely attributed to the low productivity of local breeds of cattle, sheep, goats and camels.


Table 5 Estimates of animal resources for the period 1992–2004 (million head)

Type 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004

Cattle 25 28 29 30 31 30 35 36 37 38 39 40 40

Sheep 27 31 37 37 37 37 42 45 46 47 48 48 49

Goats 23 28 33 35 35 33 36 37 38 40 41 42 42

Camels 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 3.7

Total 77 89 102 105 107 103 116 121 124 129 132 134 168

Source: Bank of Sudan Reports, FAO (2005a)

Table 6 Milk production and the quantities available for consumption in Sudan (000 tonnes)

Item 2003 2004 2005

Cattle production 4810 4912 5100 Available for consumption 2562 2562 2708 Goats production 484 484 496 Available for consumption 436 450 465 Per-capita milk consumption (Kg/year) 90 92 95 FAO Target (Kg/year) 181 181 181

Source: AOAD (2005)

Sudan ranks first in the production of meat in the Arab World. In 2004 Sudan produced 1.9 tonnes of meat. This represented 44% of the total red meat produced by Arab countries.

Rangelands in Sudan vary in area and quantity of pasture from one season to another and stretch over seven ecological zones: desert, semi-desert, low rainfall savannah on sand, low rainfall on clay, flood region, high rainfall savannah and mountainous regions. These variations support biodiversity of vegetation and production systems. Rangelands are estimated to be 110 million hectares, and it is estimated that the total forage production is about 86 million tonnes of dry matter, which includes natural range production estimated at 62.4 million tonnes and 23.2 million tonnes of agricultural residues, green fodder, dry fodder and concentrates (MET, 2000).


Rangeland in Sudan has been subjected to recurrent droughts during the last three decades and a tremendous increase in the livestock population with an increase of 30% (from 103 million head of livestock in 1997 to 134 million in 2004). The combination of both factors has led to a decrease in the palatable species of pasture and increase of unpalatable species.

The development of the livestock sub-sector is handicapped by many constraints which must be removed if the contribution of the sector to food security and poverty reduction is to be enhanced. The following are the policies required to address the major livestock issues:

• control of epidemic diseases and increasing off take (for domestic and export markets) so as to ease pressure on pastures

• improvement of genetic stock

• involvement of rural communities in the delivery of veterinary services

• privatisation of veterinary services based on a clear delineation of the services and goods which must be produced by the government (public goods) and those which may be provided by the private sector

• in those areas where nomads lose their livestock as a result of drought or conflicts, the policy should be to restock these areas with small ruminants because of their ability to withstand drought conditions and their high turnover rate

• it is important to designate certain areas in the rainfed sector for grazing separate from those designated for crop production or forestation

• building up the capacities of pastoralists through training, e.g., training women in cheese-making

• increase availability of feed: increase production of forage crops, utilisation of crop residues and baling of hay.


3.5 Fisheries

Over 95% of the Sudanese fish catch is obtained from inland fisheries on the Nile, its tributaries and associated swamps. Table 7 shows the physical production of fish by region. The southern states are the main producers of fish. They contribute about 30% of total production (Table 7).

Table 7 Fish production by Region (000 tonnes)

Year Red sea Lake NubiaSouthern

states White and Blue Nile

Other states Total

1997 5 2 24 16 3 50

1998 6 2 24 16 4 52

1999 7 2 24 16 4 52

2000 5 1 30 17 4 57

2001 5 1 31 17 4 58

2002 7 2 31 17 4 60

2003 7 2 31 17 4 60

Source: World Bank (2003) and FAOSTAT (2006)

Fishing has been largely carried out by the traditional sector for subsistence. An unknown number of small operators have also used the country’s major reservoirs in the more populated central region, and the rivers to catch fish for sale locally and in nearby larger urban centres. The few modern fishing ventures, mainly on Lake Nubia and the Red Sea, are small.

The main impediments to fishing development in Sudan include lack of trained personnel, inadequate fishery research, lack of data on fishermen and inadequate planning. To overcome these constraints the following points need to be addressed: training of fishermen, improved fishing equipment, refrigerated transport and storage and investment in fishery research.

3.6 Forestry

The area under forests in Sudan is estimated at 91.5 million hectares. Sudan represents 70% of the forest area in Arab countries (130 million hectares). Trees in Sudan contribute 70%


of household energy requirements, as well as contributing wood and fodder. Moreover, gum Arabic contributes significantly to the country’s export earnings.

Forests contribute directly to food security by producing edible foods and providing cash income (Gum Arabic). There is interdependence between food crops and forests. Any shortage in crop production leads to reliance on forests as a source of income mainly by cutting down trees. On the other hand, in good harvest seasons, less pressure is placed on forests. Sudan’s successive development plans and programs have stressed the importance of increased agricultural production, but overlooked the need for an effective balance between agricultural development and management of natural resources. Consequently, Sudan’s natural resources have been badly degraded. The 1994 demand study on forest products and the 1995–1996 national forestry inventory indicate that the annual consumption of forest products in Sudan by far exceeds the allowable cut. Sixteen million cubic meters of wood products are consumed annually while annual forest growth is not more than 11 million cubic meters (Elgizouli, 2003).

This degradation has been caused by activities such as agricultural expansion in the absence of proper land-use and forest management planning, and tree cutting for charcoal and firewood consumption (Abdel Magid and Salih, 2004). As a consequence, there has been a long-term decline of forested areas in Sudan. Currently, Sudan ranks fourth in terms of deforestation.

3.7 Recommendations

Increasing food crop productivity and production

Substantial increase in productivity and production and hence enhancement of food security could be realised through:

• Presence of strategic orientation to achieve agricultural development:

• adoption of improved technological package

• availability of timely and sufficient credit

• availability of reliable marketing information


• access to extension services

• infrastructure improvement

• guaranteeing land use rights

• Up scaling of pilot programs to increase productivity in the three farming systems, e.g., the Abdelhakam trial in the Gezira scheme, zero tillage cultivation in the mechanised sub-sector and the Gardood water harvesting in the traditional rainfed sub-sector in North Kordofan.

3.8 Livestock

Livestock constraints could be addressed through the following policies:

• control of epidemic diseases

• improvement of genetic stock

• involvement of rural communities in the delivery of veterinary services

• privatisation of veterinary services

• restock with small ruminants in drought affected areas

• designation of areas exclusively for grazing

• building the capacities of pastoralists

• increase availability of feed.



Chapter 5: Food security institutions and information

1 The structure of food security institutions

Food security is multi-faceted involving many institutions at federal and state levels including:

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MOAF)

The main function of MOAF is the achievement of food security by adopting policies which maximise the domestic production of staple food crops in a stable manner while protecting the environment and natural resources.

The Ministry of Animal Resources and Fisheries (MOARF)

The MARF has the following terms of reference:

• increase production and productivity of livestock, fisheries and poultry through control of epidemic diseases and improvement of the genetic stock

• promotion of livestock exports by following international standards to gain access to new markets

• implementation of legislation addressing sanitary measures adopted by the WTO to regulate livestock trade

• build up manpower capacity in the sub-sector.

The Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources (MOIWR)

The responsibility of the MOIWR is to maintain and control the national irrigation infrastructure, assess the water available from the various sources and implement the water policy (under formulation) which allocates water resources between different uses and users.

72 5. Food security institutions and information

Ministry of Finance and National Economy (MOFNE)

The main responsibility of the MOFNE is to maintain economic stability through the implementation of fiscal and monetary policies. In the past decade or so, emphasis has been more on growth and less on distribution. One of the important macroeconomic policies is to liberalise markets, deepen the process of privatisation and eliminate monopolistic practices.

Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs (MOHA)

The MOHA is responsible for coordinating disaster management activities. It gives guidelines and directives to donors regarding disaster issues including needs, priorities and interventions required.

Ministry of health

The Ministry of Health, among other things, monitors the impact of nutrition on individuals, especially vulnerable groups such as children under five and mothers. Malnutrition is taken as an indicator of the state of medical services in a specific area.

The Strategic Reserve Authority (SRA)

The mission of the SRA is to distribute food to vulnerable groups at times of emergency and to stabilise the prices of grain.

The Agricultural Bank of Sudan (ABS)

The role of the ABS is to enable producers to increase production by direct financing and by making agricultural machinery and chemical inputs available to producers through its widely distributed branches.

Ministry of Science and Technology (MST)

The role of the MST is to generate agricultural technology with a view to increasing and diversifying food production and improving food quality.

The Ministry of Foreign Trade (MFT)

The MFT is responsible for import and export policies including the enforcement of international, regional and bilateral trade agreements and protocols.


Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS)

The GOSS is responsible for the formulation and implementation of food security policies in Southern Sudan in coordination with the Government of National Unity.

State Governments in Northern Sudan

The state governments in Northern Sudan are responsible for the design and implementation of food security policies at a state level in coordination with the Federal Government.

2 Performance of food security institutions

To ensure coordination among the various institutions, a National Council for Food Security was proposed in September 2001 under the chairmanship of the Minister of Agriculture and Forests with other concerned ministers as members. A technical committee was formed by the Minister of Agriculture and Forests for monitoring and evaluating the food situation, development of an early warning system for food security and submission of recommendations to the National Council for taking the necessary decisions.

Unfortunately, the National Council has not been approved by the Council of Ministers. The technical committee has met occasionally for the purpose of sharing information but its input in decision making has been limited because of lack of guidance and direction from the higher authorities and more importantly, the lack of a national food security strategy. Meanwhile, each institution has pursued its own mandate with minimum coordination with other institutions. This state of affairs has led to undesirable consequences such as:

• Broad differences of opinion between the different institutions on the assessment of food required, food gaps or surpluses and the amount of food aid required to make up the food deficit.

• Absence of an institutionalised system of allocation of food aid, resulting in poor food aid targeting.


• Late and inadequate financing needed for interventions.

• Inadequate coordination of the activities of donors and NGOs. Donors and NGOs often bypass the federal ministries concerned and operate directly at state and local levels with limited knowledge of national priorities and sometimes without coordination with other national or foreign NGOs in the field. This lack of coordination between the different food security institutions has led to duplication, waste of resources, lack of standardisation of the information and consequently confusion in the decision-making process.

At the state level, a committee for food security is supposed to have been established in each state chaired by the Wali (Governor) or his representative. However, the terms of reference of these committees are limited to the identification of the need for food and the distribution of food aid. There is no emphasis on raising productivity, increasing production, improving infrastructure and improving food markets. For instance, in the State of Northern Kordofan where the State Food Security Committee consisting of 32 members and chaired by the Minister of Agriculture is active, the committee meets weekly to distribute food to the vulnerable groups in the different districts of the state. The committee also assesses the state of the rangelands and pastures and transports animal feeds from the Kenana Sugar Factory to the state to supplement the feed gap.

3 Capacity building

There are many initiatives for capacity building, e.g., the European Union is now in the process of formulating a program for capacity building of the food security institutions in Sudan entitled “The Institutional Capacity Support Program for an Integrated Food Security, Vulnerability and Market Information System (SIFSIS)”. The main components of the SIFSIS program include:

• support to livelihoods and food security information analysis and policy and planning making system components


• strengthening baseline components

• support to information: collection and analysis component

• food security and capacity building fund.

Topics to be tackled by SIFSIS include the following:

• vulnerability analysis: quantification, profiles, factors affecting vulnerability and geographical distribution

• livelihood analysis of vulnerable groups

• monitoring of IDP/refugee returns and reintegration

• natural resource uses and users and critical factors in natural resource management

• food system resilience analysis

• food gap analysis and definition of requirements in terms of food aid and buffer stock levels

• analysis of stable food production forecast

• analysis of nutritional status of vulnerable groups

• establishment of relevant food security related benchmarks for MDGs and Interim Poverty Reduction Strategies (IPRS).

The expected outputs will essentially be the following:

• creation of sustained food security and livelihood analysis capacities on the part of local institutions

• strengthen partnerships between participating institutions

• production of bulletin reports, research briefs and maps on the topics above to be utilised in policy and programming

• information stored and shared among stakeholders through appropriate software, websites, radio, etc.

• increase data collection coverage

• update baselines and profiles.

For detailed and specific capacity building proposals for food security institutions, see SIFSIS (2005).


4 Food security information

Food security information is key to food security. Information is power, and its timely availability, reliability and usability not only averts disaster, but also leads to developments that improve people’s livelihoods (Mati, 2005). Food security information in Sudan is generated by many governmental institutions, UN agencies (WFP, FAO, IFAD, UNDP, etc.) and NGOs. In Sudan, food security information may be classified as follows: 1 Rainfall and weather forecasting

• The Drought Monitoring Centre (DMC), covering 24 countries in eastern and southern Africa, was established in Nairobi with a sub-centre in Harare established in 1989 with the aim of contributing to monitoring, prediction, early warning and mitigation of adverse impacts of extreme climatic events on agricultural production and food security, water resources, energy and health among other socio-economic sectors. Since its establishment in 1989, the centre has played an important and useful role in providing the sub-region with weather and climate forecasts and more importantly, timely advance warnings on droughts, floods and other extreme climate related events. The products of the DMC are disseminated to all national meteorological and hydrological services of the participating countries to serve as early warning information to a variety of sectoral users of meteorological information and products, including policy makers, planners, health, energy, agricultural and water resource sectors, farmers as well as research institutions among others (DMC, 2005). In Sudan, during the last three years, information provided by the DMC regarding rainfall amount, distribution and timing have proved to have a high degree of reliability.


• The Sudan Meteorological Authority (SMA) provides an analysis of the timing of the rainy season, forecasts of daily rainfall and minimum and maximum temperatures. Moreover, the SMA provides monthly and yearly information with regard to rainfall over ten days, rainy days and vegetation cover. The Remote Sensing Authority is responsible for generating and distributing Geographical Information System and Remote Sensing data to relevant users (SIFSIS, 2005).

• The Sudan Early Warning Unit of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Humanitarian Aid Commission, uses the information collected by the different institutions concerned with food security information such as WFP, Meteorological Authority and NGOs (SIFSIS, 2005). The Early Warning System Monthly bulletin provides information on the food security situation, cereal supply/demand balance, the food situation at a state level, food deficit index, agro-meteorological indicators, desert locust, floods and an assessment of market behaviour (SEWS, 2005).

2 Irrigation water and annual Nile flow

The Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources is responsible for determination of the water available for irrigation based on Sudan’s share according to the Nile Water Agreement and the annual flow. Based on this information the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests decides the area to be planted and the crop mix in the irrigated schemes.

3 Information on food production, availability, distribution, accessibility and utilisation

Information related to food production and availability is collected by the federal and state ministries of agriculture, the management of irrigated schemes and the FAO/WFP crop and food supply assessment missions to Sudan.


The Department of Planning and Agricultural Statistics in the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests is responsible for supplying a data base for food security, i.e., statistics on production and productivity of the food and cash crops, export and import statistics and the year book of agricultural statistics. Moreover, costs of production statistics are collected as they affect food security through their effect on production and prices. The food security unit in the Department of Planning and Agricultural Statistics is concerned with food security: production, storage and food gaps. Estimation of the production, productivity and the stock carryover is carried out by the government with support from the FAO.

4 Size of stock

The Strategic Reserve Authority is responsible for the creation of buffer stock and price stabilisation in the country. The size of the stock is determined based on information provided by the other institutions concerned with food security information, such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests.

5 Forecast of livestock diseases

In the Ministry of Animal Resources an early warning system has been developed for disease preparedness. Survey teams are deployed periodically to monitor epidemic diseases, making use of information on rainfall and pastures.

6 Early warning on desert locusts

The desert locust is a migratory pest of pasture in most of the arid and semi-arid tropics of Africa and Asia in its solitary phase. However, when favourable conditions for locusts prevail, huge numbers of gregarious locusts develop and swarm causing considerable damage to crops and pastures. Desert locusts are important in terms of their economic and environmental impact. To cater for desert locust control Sudan and other neighbouring countries, with support from the FAO, have developed an early warning system for desert control. The system follows a preventive strategy. The idea


of this preventive strategy is to detect and control desert locusts at an early stage. The early warning system is a corner stone of this strategy and information from the field is the backbone of the early warning system.

5 Inconsistency of food information

In spite of the presence of many food security related institutions at local, state, national and regional levels, food security information is beset with many constraints and shortcomings including lack of coordination, duplication, inconsistency, inaccuracy, inaccessibility and lack of timely availability.

Information concerning area, yield and production of crops in Sudan is an example of information inconsistency. As mentioned earlier there are many institutions concerned with food security information. Each institution collects, utilises and analyses the same information (production, area, yield, prices etc.) in its own way. For instance, statistics on food crops (sorghum, wheat and millet) show a wide range of variability between the data published by the Bank of Sudan and that published by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MOAF). As depicted in Table 1, in 1993/1994, the sorghum area in the MOAF data records is estimated to be 15,000 thousand feddans, while it is only 11,152 in the Bank of Sudan records. The difference between the two sources is 3848 thousand feddans. Moreover, for the same year, the difference in yield between the two sources is 55 kg/feddan. These differences exist in spite of the fact that the Bank of Sudan depends on the MOAF as a source of information.

Table 2 shows the difference in the cereal production estimates between the FAO/WFP Missions, Bank of Sudan and Ministry of Agriculture and Forests (MOAF) for the period 1995–2002. In 1998/1999, the Mission estimate for sorghum production in the country is 785 and 607 thousand tonnes higher than the estimate of the Bank of Sudan and MOAF, respectively. In the same season Mission estimates are 61% and 41% higher than the estimates of the MOAF for wheat and millet production, respectively.


Table 1 Food crop area, production and yield:1 Difference between ministry of agriculture and forests and the Bank of Sudan (Area in 000 feddan, Production 000 tonnes, Yield Kg/feddan)


Table 2 Cereal production in Sudan: FAO/WFP missions, Bank of Sudan and ministry of agriculture and forests estimates (000 tonnes, unless otherwise indicated)

Table 3 shows the inconsistency of the data on area, production and yield between the Gezira Scheme and the MOAF. For instance, in 1994/1995, sorghum production and yield estimates of the Gezira Scheme were 72 thousand tonnes and 150 kg higher respectively than the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Forests.


Table 3 Food crop area, production and yield differences between the Gezira scheme and the ministry of agriculture and forests1 (Area in 000 feddan, Production 000 tonnes, Yield Kg/feddan)

Sorghum Wheat

Area Production Yield Area Production Yield 1992/1993 0 51 75 15 –10 –30 1993/1994 –27 52 227 0 –3 –10 1994/1995 –1 72 150 0 0 –10 1995/1996 0 –13 –43 –10 3 10 1996/1997 2 13 31 0 –19 –60 1997/1998 –75 9 70 –18 –50 0 1998/1999 0 12 45 –53 4 40 1999/2000 –89 –52 –115 59 29 2000/2001 0 33 49 –6 4 100 2001/2002 –87 –30 76 1 7 80

1Difference is calculated by subtracting the food crop area, production and yield reported by the Ministry of agriculture and forests from the Gezira scheme data.

Sources: MOAF (2002) and PSERA (2002)

6 Capacity to forecast yield and crop production

The estimation of area, yield, production and cost of production of major crops in Sudan was a routine exercise undertaken by the Ministry of Agriculture during the period 1960–1992. Every year, survey teams were sent to collect field data from the main producing areas in the irrigated, semi-mechanised rainfed and traditional rainfed sectors. The agricultural censuses provided reasonable sampling frames from which sampling units were selected for estimating yield through crop cutting. Areas could be easily estimated in irrigated schemes and semi-mechanised rainfed schemes with well-defined boundaries. Except for the traditional rainfed sector, which was scattered and in which cultivated areas were difficult to delineate, the data on sorghum, millet and wheat were obtained with a reasonable degree of


accuracy and in good time for assessment of the country’s food security situation.

With time, the reliability of the statistics on area, production and yield as a basis for estimating food production and yield lost creditability for the following reasons:

• The sampling frames were obsolete, since the last census on which these frames were based was carried out in 1973. The FAO recommends that an agricultural census should be carried out every ten years to capture social, economic and physical changes. The Ministry of Agriculture received technical assistance from USAID briefly in the 1980s in the form of satellite images, training and logistical support which helped improve the estimation of areas and yields but the project was terminated, with no elements of sustainability.

• Since 1992 the Ministry of Agriculture has been constrained by the limited budget for collection and analysis of data approved by the Ministry of Finance and National Economy. Consequently only crop cutting was made in some areas in the semi-mechanised rainfed sector to estimate yield. As for the area, estimation has been based on subjective eye estimation. This is complicated by the fact that about 50% of the area in the semi-mechanised rainfed sector is undemarcated. The same procedure is applied to the traditional rainfed sector. Only in the irrigated sector, where the scheme managements have the means, are statistics on crop production estimated with a reasonable degree of accuracy.

• After implementation of the federal system, each state estimates crop production within its territory. The Ministry of Agriculture compiles the data from the individual states to build up a national picture and may have to make some adjustments for the sake of consistency.

The FAO and WFP conduct an annual assessment in collaboration with the Ministry of Agriculture and HAC based on visits of the different states and detailed discussions to come out with reasonable estimates.


The present system of estimating yield and production has serious flaws:

• Concerned institutions publish statistics on crop production which are often inconsistent, causing confusion for users and decision makers.

• A lot of time is wasted in disputes between concerned government institutions on the estimation of the total availability of cereals, surpluses or deficits. By the time the different parties agree on the amount of food which should be imported to close a food gap, transport costs may have increased sharply (3–4 times by road and 6 times by air) and the beneficiaries suffer from delay in access to food aid.

7 Conclusions

From the above illustrations and discussion it can be concluded that the present institutions entrusted with surveying and monitoring of production and consumption are inadequate. Moreover, to avoid contradiction, duplication and inadequacy of food security information at federal and state levels the following recommendations are proposed:

• Carrying out a national agricultural census which is long overdue. The execution of the agricultural census is the responsibility of the National Bureau of Statistics in collaboration with the Ministries of Agriculture and Animal Resources. At present the Bureau gives priority to the population census which has to be carried out in fulfilment of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The agricultural census will be carried out after completion of the population census in 2009. This decision should be revised and resources should be made available so that the two censuses can be executed concurrently.

• Establishment of a strong department of agricultural statistics in the Ministry of Agriculture which controls the collection, analysis and dissemination of agricultural statistics. Similar departments should be established in each state, technically affiliated to the department


in the ministry but administratively answerable to the state Ministries of Agriculture.

• Building up the capacity of the Ministry of Agriculture and the state Ministries of Agriculture with the aim of producing reliable, relevant and timely agricultural statistics. This requires training, procurement of equipment and logistics. The detailed requirements of this system are already being negotiated between the EC, the FAO and the Government of the Sudan under a project designated as “Sudan Integrated Food Information System (SIFSIS)”.

• Completion of the land use map of Sudan.

• Access to up-to-date satellite technology applications to be used to improve estimations of area and production.

8 Recommendations for revitalisation of food security institutions

The Rural Development, Food Security and Poverty Alleviation Act, 2005 (referred to in Chapter 3) involves the establishment of an Administrative Council to supervise implementation of the Act. The Council is under the direct chairmanship of the Minister of Agriculture and a number of members representing the following bodies:

• Ministry of Agriculture and Forests

• Ministry of Animal Resources

• Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources

• Ministry of Science and Technology

• Ministry of Finance and National Economy

• Ministry of Investment

• Ministry of Industry

• Ministry of Foreign Trade

• A representative of the Federal Government Chamber


• A representative of the Private Sector

• A representative of the Farmers’ Association

• A member of the Pastoralists’ Union.

Since the National Council on Food Security and the Technical Committee associated with it have not been approved, it might be more appropriate to replace it with the Administrative Council established under the Rural Development and Food Security Act, 2005 which with minor amendments could serve the same purpose. The proposed amendments are:

• The ministries should be represented at a ministerial level to facilitate the taking of quick and decisive decisions.

• Expand the membership of the Council to include other ministries concerned with food security such as the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Social Welfare and Ministry of Education.

• Establish a Steering Committee consisting of the undersecretaries of the ministries concerned with food security. The Steering Committee should meet more often to assess and monitor the country’s food security situation and recommend policy actions for consideration by the Administrative Council.

• Establish a new Technical Committee under the chairmanship of the Director General of Planning and Agricultural Economics and membership of the heads of food security units in the Ministries of:

• agriculture

• animal resources and fisheries

• irrigation and water resources

• social welfare

• strategic reserve authority

• finance and national economy

• humanitarian affairs


• foreign trade

• agricultural Bank of Sudan.

The objective behind the establishment of the Technical Committee is to coordinate between these food security units with a view to establishing a food security information network. For these units to perform the required functions efficiently, a comprehensive program for capacity building should be undertaken in all the institutions involved in food security at federal, state and local levels.

88 Food Security in Sudan


Chapter 6: Supply chain and strategic grain reserve

1 Introduction

Food is a basic human need, and food commodities and their products form a substantial component of both national and international trade. The availability and satisfactory quality of food depend on the development and integration of cost-effective systems and technologies for its production, processing, handling, storage, distribution and marketing (NRI, 2005).

The principal participants in grain marketing systems are producers, marketing boards, grain elevators, brokers, millers, livestock farmers, animal feed processors, other food manufacturers, grain exchanges and exporters. The grain marketing system begins with the assembling and collecting points located in rural areas close to the producers. The next stage involves storage areas at the national grain marketing facilities owned and operated by an appointed parastatal and/or private grain elevator, and the grain milling companies (FAO, 2005b).

2 Grain storage

Grain production in Sudan fluctuates from one year to another and its geographical distribution is uneven. The central region of Sudan, including Gezira, Sennar, White Nile and Blue Nile states, is the main producer of grain. On average, this region contributes 39%, 27% and 7% of the total sorghum, millet and wheat production in Sudan, respectively (Tables 1–3). The eastern region of the country contributes 28% of the total sorghum production. The central and eastern regions of the country are considered to be grain surplus areas, while Kordofan, Darfur and parts of the eastern region are food deficit areas. In such a situation, to ensure food security, food crops must be


stored and/or immediately transported from grain surplus to the deficit areas. Grain storage is a crucial component of the post-harvest chain. It is practiced by farmers, traders and governments to facilitate marketing and ensure food security. The aims of storage are to keep the grain in good condition and reduce losses, to maintain quality, to make available commodities during the whole year including dry seasons and to stabilise the prices of grain and other agricultural commodities.

Table 1 Sorghum production in Sudan by region for the period 1998–2004 (as percentage unless otherwise indicated)

Region 1998/1999 1999/2000 2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004

Average (1998–2004)

Northern 2 8 5 8 4 3 5

Central 36 36 33 39 34 40 39

Eastern 38 19 27 15 24 29 28

Kordofan 8 11 7 12 12 7 10

Darfur 4 10 9 11 8 5 8

South 11 16 19 15 17 16 16

Production (000 tonnes)

4832 2434 2761 4469 2931 5188

Table 2 Millet production in Sudan by region for the period 1998–2004 (as percentage unless otherwise indicated)

Region 1998/1999 1999/2000 2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004

Average (1998–2004)

Northern 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Central 6 10 5 4 6 10 7

Eastern 2 3 3 3 2 12 4

Kordofan 21 25 25 30 28 24 25

Darfur 70 62 66 62 64 54 63

South 1 1 1 2 0 0 1


670 499 497 590 581 784

90 6. Supply chain and strategic grain reserve

Table 3 Wheat production in Sudan by region for the period 1998–2004 (as percentage unless otherwise indicated)

Region 1998/1999 1999/2000 2000/2001 2001/2002 2002/2003 2003/2004

Average (1998–2004)

Northern 64 85 78 66 54 52 66

Central 21 11 15 27 44 43 27

Eastern 13 3 5 6 1 4 5

Kordofan 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Darfur 2 1 1 2 1 1 1

South 0 0 0 0 0 0 0


168 214 334 247 364 356

It is crucial to have grain stores in the producing regions as well as in the major consumption areas, i.e., storage facilities have a similar importance in the surplus as in the food deficit areas. There are different methods of grain storage in Sudan with varying efficiency. These methods can be divided into two main groups, namely, above ground and underground facilities. Both groups include traditional and modern types of storage. Large amounts of grain are lost during post harvest operations such as threshing, cleaning, storage and transportation. Evidently this is due to traditional harvesting and threshing tools and storage. Grain losses in the traditional stores reach 50%, and range between 5% and 12% for modern stores, 6% in the underground pits and 1% in silos (Eltay, 2005).

As depicted in Table 4 modern stores represent about 75% of Sudan’s storage capacity. Other types of storage facilities include: traditional warehouses (6.6%), silos (1.8%), matmuras (underground pits) (5.5%), sowibat (3.3%), showan (2%) and platforms (6.2%). Most storage facilities in Sudan such as silos and modern stores are of poor quality. This is because of the poor physical state of the warehouses, or because of the inadequacy of management (Idris, 2004).

The storage sector is jeopardised by many problems and constraints:


• Lack of information on the exact storage capacities in Sudan.

• Dependency on traditional storage systems which are associated with high losses.

• Absence of a central body responsible for enforcing technical specifications and monitoring of storage facilities and guidance of storage research.

• Lack of strategy concerning the determination of economic storage capacities commensurate with increasing grain production and consumption in Sudan, as well as with grain export and import.

• Shortage of modern storage capacities. Existing ones need to be rehabilitated.

• Lack of information for assessment of losses during storage.

• Lack of a comprehensive quality control system.

Table 4 Sudan grain storage capacity (000 tonnes)

Type of storage Capacity Capacity as percentage

of the total Modern stores 8759 74.6 Traditional Warehouses 780 6.6 Platforms 721 6.2 Underground pit 645 5.5 Sowbat 383 3.3 Showan 240 2.0 Silos 210 1.8 Total grain storage capacity 11,738

Source: SRA (2004)

3 Grain transport

Transportation of grain from surplus producing areas to deficit areas depends on a functioning transport system consisting of a network of roads, airports, rivers and railways, as well as


storage facilities. In Sudan transportation of grain by road from surplus-producing regions to food deficit areas is very expensive. This can be attributed to the following facts:

• Long distances between food surplus-producing areas and food deficit areas, e.g., Gadaref and Southern Darfur.

• Poor road infrastructure linking food surplus with food deficit areas and the high cost of air transport.

• Inadequate storage capacities in food deficit areas. Therefore food crops are transported to deficit areas several times in a season.

• There is no precise estimate of the size of food gap in each region. The actual needs for each region are determined during the time period between the end of harvest and beginning of the next rainy season.

• Imposition of many types of taxes and levies along the road by the state governments.

• Limited capacity of the means of transport.

As depicted in Table 5 agricultural production represents 79% of the total capacity of large capacity trucks. The railway transport can be used for the bulk of commodities, as the capacity of one train could be 900 tonnes for one trip. Moreover, railway transport is relatively cheap. The cost of railway transport is only 45% that of road transport (Table 6). If Sudan railways were operating regularly and efficiently as in the past, stocks of grain could be moved fairly cheaply and quickly along the line from Port Sudan through Khartoum, Sennar, Gezira and Damazin in the Blue Nile State. The line also goes from Khartoum to Elobeid and to Nyala in western Sudan through Kosti. These lines are particularly important in the rainy season when dirt roads become impassable (Idris, 2004). At the present time, there is a reduction of more than 80% in railway transport capacity due to a lack of foreign currency and the economic sanctions by the USA which have blocked the import of spare parts (Ibrahim, 2003).

River transport connects the northern and southern regions of the country, with an annual capacity of 175,000 tonnes. River transport is mainly used by the armed forces for logistical


purposes and for transporting agricultural commodities. This sector was largely affected by war during the period between 1983 and 2004.

Table 5 Capacity of transport means (all types of large capacity trucks)

Type Number Total capacity

Trucks 5800 7,943,400 Lorries 9288 4,458,240 Small company trucks 2349 2,114,100 Small trucks Unknown Total estimate capacity 14.5 million tonnes Agricultural production 11–12 million tonnes

Source: Ibrahim (2003)

Table 6 Comparison between road and railway costs (SD/tonne)

Trip line Road (1) Railway (2) (2) as percentage of (1)

Khartoum-Port Sudan 12835 5900 46 Khartoum-Atbara 5300 2400 45 Khartoum-Nyala 33125 15000 45 Port Sudan-Nyala 55204 25000 45 Kosti-Nyala 26500 12000 45 Khartoum-Port Sudan 12835 5900 46

Source: Ibrahim (2003)

In Sudan there is no internal air freight except that carried by the WFP and other UN agencies. Moreover, air transport is very expensive and in extreme cases it could be six times the price of grain. There are no storage facilities or cooling stores at the airports and there is a high percentage of loss. Flights are irregular. However, air transport may be the only means of transport to save the lives of thousands of vulnerable groups, such as in the case of Darfur, when roads are blocked by annual streams during the rainy season.

The main constraints facing the transport infrastructure include:


• a large area of Sudan requires huge investment in the construction of networks

• poor storage capacities

• lack of cooling transport

• deterioration of railway and river freight

• high cost of transport.

In a year of bumper production, there are many ways of dealing with a surplus of grain including purchase of grain by the Strategic Reserve Authority and UN food aid agencies (WFP) and some NGOs. This surplus may be distributed as food or seeds in food deficit areas such as North Kordofan, Darfur and the Red Sea, etc., and/or may be stored as a strategic grain reserve for future food shortages.

4 Recommendations for improving transport and storage

For the realisation of food self-sufficiency, the building up of strategic reserves, stabilisation of exports, reduction in grain losses, stabilisation of prices and increasing grain market efficiency could be achieved through:

• Studying the existing storage capacity in Sudan. The last survey of storage capacities was carried out in 1988.

• Improvement in existing grain storage facilities.

• Construction of new grain storage facilities in production centres and consumption centres with special emphasis on food deficit areas.

• Training of those involved in grain storage.

• Construction of an efficient and effective transport network and encouraging investment in transport. Hence, support is required to improve the current state of physical infrastructure, facilities and logistics for movement of food grain from surplus to deficit areas. Developing a rural


infrastructure helps mitigate food insecurity by connecting food surplus and food deficit regions and enabling the Government and donors to more easily access people in need.

• Rehabilitation of railway and river transport.

5 Strategic grain reserve policies

The Government of Sudan pursued a policy of intervention in grain markets for the first time following the 1984–1985 drought. The problem of food insecurity was magnified by acute shortage of production and inadequate infrastructure and transportation facilities. Consequently, the movement of grain stocks from the surplus production areas of central and eastern Sudan to the deficit areas of the Darfur and Kordofan regions, which were hard hit by drought, was limited (Idris, 2004). The principal objectives of the government grain reserve policy were:

• To cope with the problems of crop failure and crop shortages and to be used as a buffer stock against famine.

• To stabilise price fluctuations resulting from fluctuations in supply and continuous demand. The Government used the ABS for the purchase and distribution of sorghum. The ABS supported the price of sorghum by buying 25% of the crop of the semi-mechanised small farmers at a price above the market price with a view to raising the price of sorghum in the free market to provide the necessary incentive for farmers to increase production.

• The ABS continued to undertake responsibility for the strategic reserve until 1992 when the liberalisation policy introduced then dictated resort to the free market mechanism to determine supply, demand and prices of sorghum without intervention from the Government. However, the sharp increase in prices in 1995–1996 due to a record low production in that season (2.4 million tonnes), and the resulting big food gap prompted the intervention of the Government. The ABS was used again as an instrument for


purchasing, storing and distributing sorghum to the beneficiaries.

Table 7 shows the quantity of sorghum procured and distributed by the ABS during the period 1996–2000. The quantities purchased by the ABS varied from one year to another. Most of the quantities received were in the form of repayment of loans to the Ministry of Finance by the irrigated agricultural schemes and involved the acceptance of low quality sorghum.

Table 7 Quantity of sorghum procured and distributed by ABS during 1996–2000 (Tonnes)

Season Quantity procured Period of purchase

Quantity distributed Remarks

1996/1997 149,621 June–October 1997 – –

1997/1998 42,355 March–May 1998 60,636 Distributed to state, 29,000 tonnes for export

1998/1999 51,658 March–June 1999 197,108 Distributed to states, 34,000 tonnes for export

1999/2000 25,930 April–July 2000 29,545 All distributed to states

Source: Bank of Sudan reports

This experience was frustrated by many constraints including:

• Lack of a specified budget to run and manage the reserve and export activities. The ABS bore all the costs of the services.

• Concentration of decision making at the top management level and lack of delegation of power to lower levels caused delay in decision taking.

• There was no system of monitoring the production situation and market intelligence as a base for sound strategic reserve policy.

• The strategic reserve was a sort of financing in kind to some beneficiaries with no consideration for the effect of such a policy on the objectives of the reserve.


• Absence of a clear policy at the beginning of the season. Purchasing took place late after harvest when prices were already high.

• Lack of follow up and proper targeting to ensure that the quantities are distributed to targeted beneficiaries.

• Lack of policy for disposal and replenishment of stocks in an organised manner in accordance with seasonal requirements. This sometimes led to longer periods of storage than required and deterioration in the quality of the crop. When the crop was sold in the market simultaneously with the new crop, the prices collapsed to the disadvantage of the producers.

6 Establishment of the Strategic Reserve Authority (SRA)

The Strategic Reserve Authority was established by Presidential Decree on the 20th September, 2000 as an autonomous body with a legal entity that is answerable directly to the Minister of Finance and National Economy.

The broad objectives of the SRA are:

• to collect data on and follow up production

• to estimate consumption and determination of surplus or deficits

• to build a strategic reserve of commodities

• to provide services of high quality on the basis of cost recovery and realisation of surplus revenue for the treasury

• to contribute to the increase of national income

• to invest in relevant services which the private sector refrains from investing in.

Specific mandates of the SRA include:

• availing the financing needed to procure a strategic reserve of commodities


• coordinating with the relevant institutions to ensure the availability and procurement of a strategic reserve of staple commodities and take the necessary action to close the food gap in sorghum

• determining the volume of the strategic reserve of staple commodities

• undertaking the process of allocation, distribution and replenishment of the reserve in accordance with approved standards and procedures

• undertaking the release and selling functions in the local markets of the different states when there is a shortage of production and export the excess quantities of the reserve when there is surplus production

• increasing the storage capacity in the country to keep up with the increase in production and to fulfil the requirements of domestic trade and export.

The SRA is an autonomous organisation directly responsible to the Minister of Finance and National Economy. It has a Board of Directors with representatives from the relevant ministries and institutions. The management structure consists of a Managing Director and three assistant managers and many middle and junior staff answerable to him in the areas of finance and management, marketing and storage and planning and research.

A critical look at the objectives and mandates of the SRA on the one hand and its performance on the other hand leads to the conclusion that major changes are required in the role and focus of the SRA. The justification for reorientation of the SRA is as follows.

The present scope of operations of the SRA is so wide that, in spite of the obvious commitment of the management and staff, it would be extremely difficult to meet all the objectives and mandates. The SRA is now required not only to maintain a strategic reserve in the staple grains, sorghum, wheat and millet, but also in other commodities including a strategic reserve of insecticides, fertiliser and sacks. The procurement of agricultural inputs is the responsibility of the Ministry of Agriculture, Agricultural Corporations, the Ministry of Finance and National


Economy; Bank of Sudan (BOS), Sudan Cotton Company and ABS. The major obstacle in the procurement of these inputs has been the shortage of foreign exchange. Now things have changed drastically. The Bank of Sudan has accumulated a reserve in foreign exchange equivalent to the import requirements of the country for five months, thanks to an increasing revenue from oil.

The BOS and other concerned institutions should be able to work out the necessary arrangements for procuring agricultural inputs in a timely and cost effective manner rather than shift this burden to the SRA which should focus only on the procurement of staple grains.

The mandate of the SRA calls for a leading role in closing the food gap in the country and stabilising prices for producers and consumers. Again this is beyond the capacity of the SRA. Basically this is the function of a liberalised grain market. The government should design and implement the comprehensive packages needed to encourage the private sector to play the role of balancing supply and demand. (This issue will be elaborated in the next section.)

The SRA should focus only on maintaining a reserve which caters for the needs of the vulnerable groups suffering from chronic food insecurity and those vulnerable groups who can not access food because of natural disasters, wars, etc. The SRA also needs to improve its targeting mechanism. At present there is no institutionalised system of food aid allocation. Some states where apparently food insecurity is not a problem or not a high priority sell sorghum provided by the SRA in the market and use the money to supplement their current budgets. The SRA should strengthen its M&E system to make sure that the quantity distributed reaches the target groups.

The SRA is now handicapped by shortage of finance needed to achieve its objectives. The release of funds from the Ministry of Finance and National Economy (MFNE) is often made too late and at times of peak market prices which means that smaller quantities would be purchased and distributed than planned or the SRA would have to resort to importing at much higher prices than would have been the case had it bought its requirements during the previous good season (Table 8).


Table 8 SRA procurement of grain: import vs. local purchase: 2004–2005 experience

Targeted quantity 100,000 tonnes of sorghum 242 US$/tonne Import price (C&F) 5500 SD/sack 36 US$/tonnes Import costs (15% of C&F price) 800 SD/sack

Transport costs 164 SD/sack Other costs 500 SD/sack Price (SD/Sack) at storage place 6964 SD Total costs (targeted quantities) 100,000 × 7000 = 700 million SD Sorghum price in 2004 38,500 SD/Tonnes Quantity could be purchased (if procurement from local market)

70,000,000/38500 = 181,818 tonnes

Loss 181,818 – 100,000 = 81,818 tonnes

Source: Iyman (2005)

As a result of the absence of a clear procurement policy from the local market at a time of bumper production, the SRA lost 81,818 tonnes of sorghum such as in 2005, when 100,000 tonnes of sorghum were imported from India.

The MFNE should approve a budget for the SRA sufficient to meet its mandate which should be focused on emergencies. To allow for flexibility and prompt action, the SRA should maintain its reserve partly in kind and partly in foreign exchange which can be used to import food in case of shortages in domestic production.

7 Food price stabilisation

7.1 Nature, extent and causes of price variability

Producers and consumers in Sudan are subject to severe price fluctuations for major commodities such as sorghum, millet and wheat. Table 9 shows the Coefficient of Variation (CV) of the prices of sorghum in four major markets. The CV ranged between 33% for the Gadaref market and 41% for Nyala.


Table 9 Sorghum price coefficient of variation (1998–2004)

Market Gadaref Damazin Elobeid Nyala CV% 33 43 34 41

Price variability in domestic grain markets, at least from the producer side, is of the order of 10–40% in most low-income countries, and generally comparable to variability in world prices for the equivalent grain (World Bank, 2005). Climatic changes such as drought, world price fluctuations, inelastic supply and demand, response in domestic markets and high transportation cost are the causes for price instability. Usually when a country is self-sufficient or fluctuating between import and export status and/or a commodity is a non-tradable (e.g., cassava), domestic shocks from climatic events will dominate sources of stability. This is especially so in large countries with very poor infrastructure (Byerlee and Morris, 1993). However, unlike most low income African countries, Sudan can manage severe price shocks thanks to its improving capacity to import as a result of the increasing oil export earning.

7.2 Costs of price instability

Highly volatile prices impose significant costs on society especially in low income countries where food items constitute a large proportion of the household budget for consumers and a major source of income for producers. The potential costs of food price instability can be broken down into three categories: • Economic inefficiency: food price instability in low-income

countries causes misallocation of resources and results in economic inefficiency (e.g., Timmer, 2002; Dawe, 2001).

“Food price risk causes producers, traders and consumers to engage in risk-reducing strategies such as diversification into lower value but more staple products, minimal use of purchased inputs, shrinkage of trade in remote locations, reduced investment and reluctance of farmers and traders to use new technologies. Each of these responses can distort resource allocation, investment and consumption levels from their most efficient levels, leading to a reduction in the productive capacity of the economy.”


• Effects on income distribution and household food security. The poor are the most vulnerable to price instability because they have a limited capacity to diversify their production activities and also spend a large proportion of their income on food compared to more wealthy households.

• Macroeconomic externalities. Food price instability can impose negative externalities on the general macro-economy, particularly when the food staple is a wage good and/or represents a large portion of the country’s GDP (Bidarkota and Crucini, 2000; Dawe, 2001; Dawe and Timmer, 2005). Food price shocks can pass through the economy and cause major macro-economic instability in terms of exchange rate movements, changes in the price level and political upheaval, thus imposing considerable costs on the rate of economic growth (Choudury, 1995; Ramey and Ramey, 1995; Deaton and Miller, 1996). In Sudan, instability in the price of sorghum has a direct negative impact on the prices of a large number of sorghum-related food items including sorghum flour used in making ‘Asida’ and ‘Kisra’ (local foods), meat, milk and poultry products.

7.3 Lessons from food market reform experiences in Asia, Africa and Mexico

Recent studies on food market reforms revealed the following important lessons:

• Price stabilisation, as part of a much larger package to support agriculture, has contributed to economic development and stability, especially in Asia. Some argue that there are very few examples of sustained agricultural development in recent decades that did not involve major direct state involvement in price setting and distribution for major food staples (Dawe and Timmer, 2005; Poulton et al., 2005). However, Cummings et al. (2005) argued that price stabilisation did contribute to economic growth and macro-stability in some Asian countries, but that such interventions are not likely to be a cost-effective approach in


most developing countries today. They stress the importance of government commitment on many fronts to achieve success in agricultural development, in general terms embodied in “improved institutions, incentives and investments”.

• A commitment to stabilising food prices through state marketing operations and stockholding is likely to impose high costs on the public treasury. In some eastern and southern African countries, marketing board losses on maize trading and stockholding has sometimes accounted for 4–5% of GDP (Jayne et al., 2005). These fiscal outlays could have contributed considerably to agricultural growth and poverty reduction had they been devoted to investment in core public goods.

• Food price stabilisation policies almost inevitably become subject to important political economy ‘capture’. Stabilisation programs that were designed to be modest in scope and to protect the more vulnerable segments of the farming community have evolved into very large and costly programs in which the majority of the benefits have been captured by a small majority of the population, often larger farmers and processors.

• Partial liberalisation with continued government interventions in food markets has often undermined the transition from a publicly controlled marketing system to a market-oriented one, by creating a high risk environment for private operators and sometimes exacerbating price instability.

There is rationale for maintaining some public sector role in markets, especially during a transition process. However, such a role could be counterproductive concerning price stability if it is based on discretionary and unpredictable government actions (Coulter, 2005).


8 Conclusions and recommendations

8.1 Recommendation for transforming SRA into Food Security Reserve (FSR)

Based on the above mentioned observations there are objective reasons for transforming the SRA into a Food Security Reserve (FSR) to serve both a relief and public distribution system for the chronically poor. The crucial factors determining the success or failure of the SRA in meeting its objectives is the quality of management. Specific elements are crucial to successful management of the SFR including:

• central-bank type autonomy, with complete independence from political influences

• highly professional management with a good information system and analytical capacity

• flexibility to hold a combination of grain and financial reserves that minimises costs within acceptable levels of risk

• clear open rules for market intervention and transparency in its interventions

• access to funds or financial markets to provide flexibility to respond in an emergency.

8.2 Recommendations for development of private food markets

On the basis of experiences of African and Asian countries, consultants believe that extreme fluctuations in food prices could be reduced effectively through private markets. The government has already liberalised commodity markets since 1992. However, a comprehensive policy package should be put in place to expedite private markets:

• Adopt a holistic approach to avoid the possibility of instituting a system that may narrowly target price instability at the expense of broader improvements in marketing efficiency and smallholder productivity.


• Balance the need for long-run investments in sustainable market development and productivity growth with short-run policy instruments for managing food price risks and instability.

• Policy should be consistent, predictable and transparent with open ‘rules of the game’ rather than discretionary.

• Predictable implementation of a well-defined food security strategy.

• Reduce fiscal costs of producer price support through implementing a pooled pricing system.

• Remove restrictions on grain movements and imports, e.g., levies and taxes on inter-district movement of grains.

• Improve crop forecasting and market information systems.

• Liberalise regional trade.

• Build private sector capacity, e.g., financing critical market infrastructure, piloting weather insurance for crops.

• Enforce standards and quality control measures.

• Counter-cyclical safety net programmes and additional resources allocated on a timely basis, well targeted to the most vulnerable. These resources should support and not undermine market development.

• Variable tariffs to manage world price shocks. Variable tariffs have some scope to protect producers from extremely low prices in food importing countries but require open and transparent rules, preferably monitored by the WTO to prevent abuse.

• Establish a food security reserve for servicing both emergency relief and a public distribution system for the chronically poor.



Chapter 7: Food insecurity coping mechanisms

1 Introduction

Coping mechanisms are the means that people use to try to maintain their livelihoods in times of stress such as famine, drought, flood, etc. Peoples across the world have shown that they can cope with the most terrible disasters, often by using various different strategies and initiatives (Gibbon and Hennessy, 2003).

Many indicators have been used to monitor food security, including food balance sheets, rainfall and marketing data, and even anthropometric measurement (Maxwell and Frankenberger, 1992). Haddad, Kennedy and Sullivan (1994) noted a variety of indirect indicators that can be used as predictors for food insecurity at a household level, including asset ownership, household size, and dependency ratio. An additional approach has been to analyse the use of, and reliance upon, strategies for dealing with food insufficiency at a household level as direct indicators. The range of such strategies has been noted. Examples of these strategies include short-term dietary changes, reducing or rationing consumption, altering household composition, altering intra household distribution of food, depletion of stores, increased use of credit for consumption purposes, increased reliance on wild food, short-term labour migration, short-term alterations in crop and livestock production patterns, pledging, mortgaging and sales of assets and distress migration (de Garine and Harrison, 1988; Corbett, 1988; Reardon et al., 1988; de Waal, 1989; Drèze and Sen, 1989; Moris, 1989; Frankenberger and Goldstein, 1990; Leonard, 1991; Rahmato, 1991; Frankenberger, 1992; Teklu, 1992; de Garine, 1993; Davies, 1993; Frankenberger and Coyle, 1993; Devereux and Naeraa, 1993; Watts and Bohle, 1993; Eele, 1994; Maxwell, 1995).


Numerous authors (Chambers, 1989; Maxwell and Smith, 1992; Davies, 1993; Frankenberger and Coyle, 1993) have noted that food security is but one element of livelihood security, and have argued that indicators of the former should not be interpreted independently of a good understanding of the latter. Frankenberger and Coyle have observed that “poor people balance competing needs for asset preservation, income generation, and present and future food supplies in complex ways”. Davies (1993) makes the distinction between ‘coping strategies’ (fallback mechanisms to deal with a short-term insufficiency of food) and ‘adaptive strategies’ (long-term or permanent changes in the way in which households and individuals acquire sufficient food or income).

The frequency and severity of coping strategies practiced vary according to the causes of the food shortage (chronic vs. transient), kinds of households affected (agricultural vs. pastoral), local market conditions, and the absence or presence of relief programs (Corbett, 1988).

In Sudan different responses to the problems caused by food insecurity are made at a household level, as well as at a national level.

2 Household coping mechanisms

The various household mechanisms for coping with food insecurity can be classified under three broad categories.

2.1 Production-based responses

These include many mechanisms such as expansion of food crop production, and improving productivity. For many decades Sudan has pursued a self-sufficiency policy in wheat, to be produced under irrigation. More recently in the 1990s, a shift of emphasis in the irrigated sector to increase wheat and sorghum production was implemented to provide reasonably steady production growth rates in the future. Many actions such as increasing planted areas, developing improved production technologies, as well as liberalisation of domestic markets have been sought to expand cereal grain production in the irrigated

108 7. Food insecurity coping mechanisms

sector (Faki et al., 1995). As stated before, productivity is low and fluctuating. For this reason most small farmers in the traditional and semi-mechanised sub-sectors increase the area under food crops at the expense of cash crops as a coping mechanism in anticipation of seasonal food shortages.

In the traditional rainfed and semi-mechanised sub-sectors, where rainfall is erratic, low productivity is attributed to unavailability of adequate amounts of agricultural inputs, and inadequate/lack of well adapted and high yielding varieties, in addition to lack of crop diversification. Farming productivity could be improved by disseminating high yielding and early maturing varieties to the farmer at the beginning of the season, together with provision of agricultural credit and extension services. Irrigation is one of the most important factors which influence productivity. Hence, water harvesting is another coping mechanism which enhances productivity.

2.2 Market-based responses

Farmers adopt different mechanisms to attain physical as well as financial access to food grain. This can be done through:

• Food purchase through sale of assets, mainly livestock. Some of the farmers own livestock that can be sold or used for food at the time of food deficit. Sales of livestock to purchase grain during food supply shortages have a substantial effect on the farmers’ economy mainly because of the sharp decline in livestock prices. When livestock prices are seen to be declining, it often indicates that there is a disaster within the area.

• Most of the farmers cope with food shortages by storing grain for up to 12 months. Farmers depend on the traditional way of storage (ground pits and/or in houses) which is associated with high losses. Low yields on farms and high storage losses of food crops are considered to be the main causes of food insecurity. The traditional way of storage could be improved by improving storage techniques.


• Working on productive activities to earn cash income for buying food. Practicing of petty trading and procuring cheaper foods to substitute more expensive and more nutritious items. For instance, in Kordofan and Darfur millet is preferred to and is more expensive than sorghum. In years of local food deficit and higher prices of cereals, most people shift to sorghum to obtain more grain with the limited household budget. Moreover, the food insecure households increase the production of petty commodities such as sale of firewood and charcoal, as sources of income generating activities which will lead to environmental degradation, such as the case of desertification in the North Kordofan state.

2.3 Non-market-based responses

Non-market based responses include the following:

• Institutional and societal income transfer systems such as gifts from relatives, remittances, receiving free relief aid, etc.

• Borrowing grain from relatives. Local merchants and landlords may extend short-term credit, often at very high rates. However, borrowing money for food can lead to permanent indebtedness, and is an example of how a short-term coping strategy can put a household in a more vulnerable position with regard to longer-term livelihood options (Maxwell, 1995). In Southern Sudan, there are many traditions that ensure that a village survives disasters. If a family unit within the community has completely run out of food, then they can borrow a cow from a wealthy neighbour. This is not viewed as ‘charity’. It is a part of normal life in the village. It is then expected that when better times come, and when they can afford it, the family will give back the cow to the wealthy villager. Local ‘social pressure’ makes sure that the repayment takes place (Gibbon and Hennessy, 2003).

• Migrating to large cities and agricultural schemes to work in other productive activities to earn cash income for buying food. Migration of male labour is also recognised as a cause of food insecurity. Huss-Ashmore (1997) stated that women


and children suffered from lack of food and poor hygiene because women were too exhausted to cook and clean at times of peak agricultural work.

• Reducing consumption by cooking food once or twice a day instead of three meals per day and/or reducing the amount of food per meal. The Red Cross (RC) and the World Food Program (WFP) estimate that the average person should consume at least 2100 kilocalories of energy per day in order to maintain a healthy, disease-resistant body. If a person is forced to reduce his daily intake below this level, then there are immediate negative consequences to his health, as well as other consequences that may be permanent. Immediate consequences include a reduced ability to resist disease infections, which in turn may result in the person contracting diseases that by themselves may permanently disable the person. Reduction in nutrition intake by small infants can result in retarded physical and intellectual development, from which the infant may not recover fully when full nutrition is resumed.

• In cases of severe food insecurity, people depend on different food sources such as wild fruits and edible forest plants (Elmokhade, Tabladi tree leaves, etc.). Movement of rural communities to collect and eat wild foods is seen by the aid agencies as an early warning sign of an impending crisis or famine. Moreover, the farmers may be so desperate that they eat the seeds they have planned to plant next season. This means that they destroy the food sources for the following year (Gibbon and Hennessy, 2003).

• Sharing food between households or eating together is mainly practiced in rural areas, where all the neighbouring farmers eat their meals together in one place called the ‘Dara’.

• In the North Kordofan State the farmers or food insecure households participate in various food-for-work development programs provided by the WFP and other UN agencies and NGOs.


3 Coping mechanisms at a national level

Eltay (2005) stated that, at a national level, the Strategic Reserve Authority (SRA) has adopted some actions to cope with food shortage through procurement of grain, storage policy and distribution policy. The SRA has adopted different ways for the procurement of grain, including collecting the debts that belong to the Federal Ministry of Finance and National Economy from irrigated schemes, purchasing of local grain, avoiding rising prices through closed tenders and so on. These have led to contracts with some companies for the supply of sorghum (Eltay, 2005) by importing sorghum to face the grain shortage. The government had encouraged the private sector to import sorghum and maize by cancelling customs duties, import taxes and port fees. The SRA plans to link Sudan’s food surplus areas with deficit areas by establishing storage centres in Elobeid, Port Sudan, Khartoum, Kosti and Nyala. The SRA adopted three systems for distributing grains: free food for the poor, distribution at special prices to specific areas and distribution for stabilising prices depending on reports from the state committees (Eltay, 2005).

It is evident that the literature concerning Sudan’s food insecurity coping mechanisms is not well documented. Hence, there is a need for an in-depth study on coping mechanisms covering most parts of the country particularly food deficit areas such as Kordofan, Darfur, Red Sea, White Nile, Blue Nile, etc. This study should preferably be carried out during the period of food shortage. Findings of the study are expected to contribute towards bridging the existing knowledge gaps in understanding different food insecurity coping mechanisms. Improvements in traditional coping mechanisms could significantly assist in the realisation of food security.

4 The dynamic nature of coping strategies

Insecure food perceives food insecurity in a dynamic perspective with short-term, medium term and long-term dimensions. Each of these time dimensions requires certain coping mechanisms.


In the short-term, the individual or household suffering from food insecurity has a limited capacity for manoeuvre. The household has to take advantage of whatever opportunities are available to survive an impending disaster. This could mean liquidation of household assets, hiring out family labour, seasonal migration, requesting remittances from relatives, rationing food stocks by the household, etc.

In the medium term, even if the household is not facing an immediate disaster, it tends to take precautionary actions from a probable famine based on past experiences. These actions may include selling large animals such as cattle which are less adaptive to drought conditions and replacing them with small ruminants, especially goats, which can survive drought and have the advantage of high turnover. Another medium term strategy is to diversify crops, and as a safeguard against uneven distribution of rainfall, cultivate more than one field in different locations in the vicinity of the village to increase the probability that at least some fields will receive rainfall.

In the long-term, a household with a long experience of recurrent drought, depleted assets and degraded land may plan to change their livelihood from traditional agriculture or pastoralism to another occupation in the village or nearby town, or even migrate permanently to another town or urban centre. The household may decide to invest in the education of their children or buy a piece of land in the periphery of the town and become an urban citizen. However, the behaviour of the food insecure may not follow this step-by step pattern. It is possible that certain vulnerable groups who are hard hit by drought may decide to migrate from their villages to the urban centre directly. This is exactly what happened in the case of those people who migrated from rural areas in North Kordofan hit by drought in 1984–1985 to settle permanently at El Muweileh, west of Omdurman.

The implications of this policy analysis are that the government and the donor community should understand and strengthen the coping strategies of rural households and communities to survive disasters.


5 Food aid

Food aid has been used by the international community to improve access to food and reduce suffering from emergency conditions in low-income countries. A recent study (USDA, 2004) of 62 food-aid-receiving countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, concluded that food aid contributed effectively to the stabilisation of consumption in these countries. Food aid received between 1981 and 2000 was equal to 92% of all consumption shortfalls.

It is a fact that ‘Project Food Aid’ has been successful in saving lives in many low income countries and in reducing demand for foreign exchange. There is also an agreement on the use of food aid in post-emergency situations. However, ‘Program Food Aid’, i.e., government–to–government donation, in the past had often undermined market development, and in some cases, aggravated price instability through untimely food aid release (World Bank, 2005). Donors have also often provided policy advice that lacks coherence across different operations over time (Bird et al., 2003). Moreover, grain market policies in donor countries themselves, especially trade policies, shift domestic price instability to global markets, with negative impacts on food importing countries (Tyers and Anderson, 1993). It has also been argued that dependency on food aid may decrease a country’s ability to manage world price shocks, since food supplies are negatively correlated with world prices (Taylor and Byerlee, 1999; Barrett and Maxwell, 2005).

6 Emergency and development

Food aid has assumed an important role in meeting emergency needs in Sudan resulting from the war in the South, recurrent droughts and the recent conflict in Darfur. Table 1 shows the amount of humanitarian assistance received through the ’Sudan Appeal’ during the last 11 years. The annual amount of humanitarian assistance requested averaged US$ 185.8 million and the actual value of assistance received averaged US$ 124 million annually. This does not include assistance for


Darfur during the last two years which represents a sharp increase.

Table 1 The value of food aid pledged and committed through the Sudan appeal (million US$)

Year Pledged (1) Committed (2) (2) as % of (1) 1993 194.5 142.2 64 1994 186.9 163.2 87 1995 101.1 50.7 50 1996 107.6 55.3 51 1997 120.8 48.9 40 1998 205.9 191.5 93 1999 204.4 198.3 97 2000 131.5 107.3 82 2001 251.9 155.7 62 2002 274.6 123.9 45 2003 265.0 127.6 48

Source: Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs

There is concern among policy makers and development economists over the dominance of the emergency components of food aid. In recent years humanitarian assistance to Sudan has tripled, to US$ 1.31 billion, an increase largely driven by the international response to the humanitarian crisis in Darfur (JAM, 2005). In commitments to the work plan for 2005, close to 70% has been pledged towards food aid. However, in the medium term, Sudan’s financing needs will increasingly shift from humanitarian and recovery towards development and long-term capacity building priorities financed via its own resources.

The WFP has been financing development projects in the form of food-for-work and school feeding activities. The food for work program has been targeting communities in North Kordofan, West Kordofan, the Red Sea, North and West Darfur States, where water for human and livestock use is a major problem and the main item in the rural household budget. The WFP provides food which is used as a wage good to be paid to those employed in the digging of hafirs. Table 2, shows that


163,894 beneficiaries benefited from the project against 5,681 tonnes of sorghum received in return for their labour.

Table 2 Quantity of food for work distributed by WFP (2002–2005)

State No. of beneficiaries Total food

distributed (tonnes) North Kordofan 28,176 2,124 West Kordofan 66,204 1,163 Red Sea 34,235 561 North Darfur 30,229 1,310 West Darfur 5,050 523 Total 163,894 5,681

Source: WFP (2005)

These projects proved to be very effective in contributing to the welfare of rural communities. The hafirs involved other benefits besides the immediate benefits of food. The hafir is ultimately owned by the community which gets access to water at a relatively low cost and can use the revenue generated from the sale of water to support community services such as education and health services. The availability of water close to the village saves time that used to be spent in carrying water for long distances. This is true for both men and women who can now engage in more productive activities.

7 Redefining the role of food aid

Planners and policy makers in low income food deficit countries should take into consideration the fact that food-aid levels are now about two-thirds lower than they were 30 years ago (Hoddinott et al., 2003). The implementation of WTO agreements could further reduce food aid to low income countries through the reduction of grain stocks in developed countries emanating from reduced surpluses as a result of the reduction of the subsidies.

Another action which could lead to further reduction of aid is the recent agreement to subject food aid to WTO disciplines


aimed at preventing “commercial displacement through food aid operations”.

Under these circumstances, besides responding to needs created by conflicts and other disasters, the principal objective of food aid in Sudan would be to build up the capacity of the country and the beneficiary communities so as to be able to cope with starvation and hunger. This could be achieved through the following strategies:

• Strengthening household strategies for coping with shocks. Examples of such household strategies are: diversification of the assets by combining crop production with raising of small ruminants; adoption of water harvesting technologies; adoption of drought resistant crop varieties; improved storage facilities to reduce grain loss; investment in the education of household members; promotion of minor traditional crops such as white water melons in Kordofan, (a low-input multi-purpose crop used as a source of water for human beings and animals – a food, a feed and an important cash crop).

• Support long-run domestic market developments by:

• converting from food to cash transfers where markets are already functioning reasonably well

• scaling-up local and regional procurement of food aid including maintenance of a mall-managed emergency reserve

• incorporating rainfall insurance into safety net programs to enhance their ability to trigger timely and better-targeted responses to droughts (World Bank, 2005)

• better targeting of aid through improved information systems and use of self-targeting approaches including ‘inferior grains’

• integrating safety nets with market development activities such as the use of food aid to construct a local market infrastructure.


• Increase assistance for school feeding programs supported by the WFP which covers a number of states. School children are a very important group adversely affected by food insecurity, especially in the food deficit areas examined by the study, i.e., North and South Kordofan. In South Kordofan, there are about 277,000 children of school age in the five provinces of the state. Out of this number, 132,000 (44%) were enrolled in schools and the rest missed the chance of going to school. Of the enrolled, only 23,000 (17%) benefit from school meals (breakfast). The percentage of children who drop out of school is very high in those schools which do not receive school meals. The effect of the lack of food is compounded by the long distance (5–10 km) which children have to walk each day between school and their villages.

8 Recommendations

• An in-depth study should be carried out to document food insecurity coping mechanisms in Sudan.

• The government and the donor community should strengthen the coping strategies of rural households and communities:

• In the short-term, assistance in terms of food, seeds, hand tools, medicines, etc., is required to cope with disaster.

• In the medium term, the focus should be on the development and empowering of communities to cope with disaster. This requires investment in rural infrastructure and services such as feeder roads, constructing hafirs, storage centres, veterinary clinics, etc. This should be implemented through the participatory approach, with the community contributing an increasing share of the costs.

• There should be a shift in emphasis from food aid to cash assistance.



Chapter 8: Conclusions

In the preceding chapters we have critically examined the efforts of the World Food Program (WFP) as part of other UN agencies to support the Government of Sudan, by way of strengthening its capacity to deal effectively with recurring problems of emergencies and droughts.

The main objective of this study is to review and analyse the current food security strategy, nutritional and agricultural policies and to prepare specific recommendations for consideration by the government of Sudan.

This book adopts the 1996 World Food Summit definition of food security:

“Food Security is a situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

Food security is multi-dimensional, including availability, accessibility, stability and utilisation. At present, three forms of food insecurity occur at a household level in Sudan:

• chronic food insecurity caused by long-term unfavourable agro-climatic conditions of drought and desertification

• transient food insecurity due to recurrent drought and conflict in the south and lately in Darfur, disrupting agricultural production and affecting the livelihoods of millions of people who ultimately become IDPs or refugees

• creeping food insecurity resulting from gradually deteriorating economic conditions of some segments of the population, namely rural-urban migrants, limited income government employees and pensioners.

Sudan achieves a high degree of self-sufficiency in staple crops at a national level most of the time except in drought years. However, some segments of the population remain food insecure because they lack means of access to food. In the absence of a comprehensive food security strategy, food security policies are


short-term and ad hoc, focusing on emergencies and disaster management and lacking harmonisation between the various actors.

Sudan is endowed with plenty of cultivable land estimated at 86 million hectares. However, less than 20% is utilised at present under the three major farming sub-sectors: the irrigated, the semi-mechanised rainfed and the agro-pastoral traditional rainfed. Sudanese agriculture is characterised by low productivity of land and high costs of production.

Main causal factors include:

• absence of strategic orientation to achieve agricultural development

• lack of improved technological packages due to low investment in research and technology transfer

• lack of credit

• poor infrastructure

• poor access to marketing services

• uncertain land use rights.

A substantial increase in productivity and production and hence enhancement of food security could be realised if an agricultural development program were implemented to overcome these constraints. Such a program should be based on three pillars:

• improve the structure of incentives for stakeholders (i.e., farmers, pastoralists, traders, financiers, etc.)

• reform institutions

• promote investment in agriculture (both public and private).

Sudan possesses a large population of livestock, the second largest in Africa. Livestock is raised primarily under the pastoral system. It contributes significantly to food security but its potential has not been utilised effectively. Enhancement of the role of livestock in food security could be realised by control of epidemic diseases, increased off-take so as to ease pressure on pastures, restocking of small ruminants in drought – stricken areas, involving communities and the private sector in the

120 8. Conclusions

delivery of veterinary services and improving pasture and communal grazing lands.

Food markets play a vital role in connecting producers and consumers through different levels of markets and intermediaries. However, the efficiency of the food marketing chain is jeopardised by many constraints including the lack of accurate marketing information, long distances between production and consumption areas, limited railway capacity and reliance on road transport with high costs, inadequate storage capacity and imposition of many types of taxes and levies by state authorities. Extreme fluctuations in food prices could be reduced effectively if a comprehensive policy package to strengthen the role of private markets were introduced. Such a package of government interventions should include:

• predictable implementation of a well-defined food security strategy

• removing restrictions on grain movements and imports and exports, e.g., removing levies and taxes on inter-state movement of grains

• improving crop forecasting

• liberalising regional trade

• building private sector capacity, e.g., financing critical infrastructure

• enforcing contracts, standards and quality control measures

• imposing variable tariffs to manage world price shocks.

The Strategic Reserve Authority (SRA) is an autonomous body answerable to the Minister of Finance and National Economy and established for the objectives of building a strategic reserve of commodities, undertaking allocation, distribution and replenishment of the reserve and stabilising price fluctuations. The SRA has not been able to achieve these multiple objectives for many reasons including lack of a clear strategic vision, shortage of finance, late release of funds, often at times of high prices and lack of an institutionalised system of food allocation resulting in poor targeting. The consultants propose that the SRA


be transformed into a ‘Food Security Reserve’ which should focus on the needs of those groups suffering from chronic food insecurity and those groups affected by natural and man-made disasters. The objective of stabilising prices should be left to the mechanisms of an efficient private food market as alluded to above.

Besides responding to the emergency needs created by conflicts and other natural disasters, the focus of food aid in Sudan should be aimed at building the capacity of the country and the beneficiary communities to cope with starvation, hunger and poverty reduction in the long run. This could be achieved through the following strategies:

• supporting household strategies to cope with shocks

• supporting long-term domestic market developments, e.g., converting from food to cash transfers, supporting establishment of an improved information system and integrating safety nets with market development such as constructing local infrastructure

• supporting government policy of investing in human capital through expanding the school feeding programme

• assisting capacity building at the federal and state levels in food security policy planning, monitoring and evaluation.

Many national institutions, UN agencies and NGOs are active in the field of food security. However, the level of coordination between these actors is inadequate. This results in serious problems including:

• wide differences of opinion on the assessment of food needs, food gaps or surpluses and the amount of food aid required to make up for the food deficit

• late and inadequate financing needed for intervention resulting in late responses and high cost of goods and services provided to beneficiaries.

The Administrative Council established by the Rural Development and Food Security Act, 2005 provides the best instrument to bring together all the ministers concerned.

122 8. Conclusions

The Council should be assisted by a Steering Committee consisting of undersecretaries of the related ministries. The Steering Committee should meet periodically to assess and monitor the food security situation in the country and recommend policy actions for consideration by the Administrative Council. The Steering Committee should be supported by a technical committee consisting of the heads of the food security units in the ministries concerned. The technical committee should establish a harmonised food information system to support decision making.

Finally it is hoped that the analysis and recommendations presented in this book will help to stimulate debate amongst scholars, researchers and policymakers.

123

ANNEX 1

Interviews with different stakeholders Stakeholders Institution Dr.Mahmed Mhamoud Elhanan Undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and

Forests (MOAF), Khartoum Mohammed Hassan Jubara Director-General, International Cooperation,

MOAF Dr. Omer Abdulwahab Director-General, Horticulture, MOAF Dr. Abdelteef Aijeimi Director-General, Agricultural Economics and

Planning, MOAF Fatih Elrahaman Mohamed Ahmed

Director-General, Natural Resources, MOAF

Mahmed Ali Salama The Irrigated Sector, MOAF Elamin Hassan Elamin Head of Food Security Unit, MOAF Abelhameed Adam Hamid Acting Director, National Forests Corporation,

MOAF Dr. Ahmed Mustafa Hassan Undersecretary, Ministry of Animal Resources,

Khartoum Dr. Hassan Mahmed Nor Director-General, Ministry of Animal Resources,

Khartoum Mahmed Bahar ELdin Undersecretary, Ministry of Irrigation and Water

Resources Hasbo Mohamed Abdelrahman General Commissioner for Humanitarian

Assistance, HAC Omar Abdelsalam Deputy Undersecretary, Ministry of Finance and

National Economy, Khartoum Hafiz Atta Elmannan Ministry of Finance and National Economy,

Khartoum Lila Elbadri Ministry of Finance and National Economy,

Khartoum Awad Osman Managing Director, Agricultural Bank of Sudan,

Khartoum Mohamed Zin Deputy Managing Director, Agricultural Bank of

Sudan, Khartoum Fatihi Abuekgasim Agricultural Bank of Sudan Mohmed Hassan Elsheikh Bank of Sudan, Khartoum Siri Ibrahim Mohamed Assistant Managing Director, SRA Dr. Siham Bala Ministry of Health, Nutrition Unit, Khartoum

124

Abdella Tahir Bin Yahia FAO Representative, Khartoum Salah Mudthir FAO, Khartoum Arif Hussein Head, VAM Unit, WFP, Khartoum Abdelbari UNICEF, Khartoum Omer Ibrahim Eltingari Director-General of the Ministry of Agriculture,

Animal Wealth and Irrigation, Gadaref State Mustafa Osman Agricultural Economics Department, Ministry of

Agriculture, Animal Wealth and Irrigation Tarig Elhadi Said Agricultural Economics Department,

Administration of Economics and Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Wealth and Irrigation

Mohamed Tom Forests Administration, Gadaref State Bala Musa General Manager, National Forest Corporation,

Gadaref State Dr. Kamal Abdelrahim Department of Animal Wealth, Ministry of

Agriculture, Animal Wealth and Irrigation, Gadaref, State

Eisa Omer Eisa General Manager, Crops Market Omar Mohamed Elgali Head of the Farmers’ Union, Gadaref State Ibrahim Abdelrahman Farmers’ Union, Gadaref State Mahgoob Ahmed Elryah General Manager, Agricultural Bank of Sudan

(ABS) – Gadaref Branch Mahmed Abdalla General Manager, Bank of Sudan – Gadaref

Branch Tyfoor Sir Elkhatim Planning and Socioeconomic Administration, GS Hassan Kambal Gezira Scheme, Abdelhakam Trail Abdelaati Osman Gezira Scheme, Extension and Seeds Production

Administration Osman Gassir Osman Gezira Scheme, Nor Elhoda Block Inspector Tenants Elshokaba Village Tenants – Gezira Scheme Tenants Elwohda Village Tenants – Gezira Scheme Prof. Azhari Abdelasim Hamada Director-General of the Agricultural Research

Corporation, Sudan Prof. Elsadig Suleiman Mohamed

Deputy Director-General of the Agricultural Research Corporation, for Projects and International Cooperation, Sudan

Dr. Ibrahim NorEldin Deputy Director-General of the Agricultural Research Corporation for Technology and Station Affairs, Sudan

125

Bashir Mohamed Ali Karsi Minister of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, North Kordofan State

Sulieman Gabir Ali Director-General, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, North Kordofan State

Khalid Hassan Abdalla Director-General, Special Program for Food Security, North Kordofan

Fisal Hasab Elrsool General Manager, Natural Resources, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, North Kordofan State

Ali Dafa Alla Food Security Committee, North Kordofan State Rahama Bilala Director-General, Administration of Agriculture

and Animal Resources, Shakan, North Kordofan Abda Amin Maroof Extension and Technology Transfer, Ministry of

Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, North Kordofan State

Hassan Mustafa Planning Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, North Kordofan State

Dr. Elhag Hassan Abuelgasim Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobeid (Millet Breeding)

Dr. Abderlahman Khidir Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobeid (Agronomy)

Gylani Abdalla Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobeid (GN Breeding)

Yasir Gasam Elseed Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobeid (Entomology)

Osman Elfatih Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobeid (Soils and Irrigation))

Mohamed Elfatih Khalid Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobeid (Plant Protection)

Mahmood Awad Maki Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobeid (Technology Transfer)

Salih Elagab Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobeid (Agric. Economics)

Isam Eldin hag Eltahir IFAD, Water Administration, North Kordofan Rashid Abdelaziz IFAD, North Kordofan Amal Hassan Bushara IFAD, North Kordofan Yassin Dowleeb Monitoring and Evaluation, IFADF, North

Kordofan Zeinab Elnor Monitoring and Evaluation, IFADF, North

Kordofan

126

Abdelrahman Hashim Seed Technical Advisor, IFADF, North Kordofan Khalid Mohamed Ahmed Acting Director-General, Ministry of Agriculture,

Animal Resources and Irrigation, Southern Kordofan State

Suluiman Ibrahim Horticulture Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, Southern Kordofan State

Hag Ibrahim Tiarab Horticulture Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, Southern Kordofan State

Elzin Mohammed Bashir National Forests Corporation, Southern Kordofan Ibrahim Omer Hamooda Rainfed Agriculture, Ministry of Agriculture,

Animal Resources and Irrigation, Southern Kordofan State

Eltyaib Ibrahim Mohamed Planning and Agricultural Statistics, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, Southern Kordofan State

Sultan Mohamed Sultan Range Management, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, Southern Kordofan State

Intisar Adam Ismail Planning Administration, Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, South Kordofan State

Osman Eisa Monitoring and Evaluation, South Kordofan Rural Development Program

Kamal Osman Bala Director-General, South Kordofan Rural Development Program

Nawal Adam Bakhit Monitoring and Evaluation, South Kordofan Rural Development Program

Mohammed Ibrahim Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Resources and Irrigation, South Kordofan State

Mohammed Daffalla FAO – Food Security Programme, South Kordofan, Kadugli

Dr. John Smith FAO – Food Security Programme, Animal Wealth, South Kordofan , Kadugli

Hassan Abdelrahaman Hassan Director-General, Save the Children, South Kordofan, Kaduguli

Ismail Digaise Secretary General, South Kordofan State Elfatih Ali Ismail HAC, South Kordofan Haroon Mohamed Abdalla HAC, South Kordofan Anis Abdelateef Director-General, Ministry of Education, South

Kordofan Mansoor Kotran Kinda Ministry of Education, South Kordofan

127

Billey Mwinga WFP, Head of the VAM Unit, Rumbek Herman Adhiambo VAM Unit, WFP, Rumbek Michert Bizunch VAM Unit, WFP, Rumbek Andrew Odera VAM Unit, WFP, Rumbek Josepha Mambo Project Officer, UNICEF, South Sudan Eliaba Youa New Sudan Center for Statistics Maker Ayuel New Sudan Center for Statistics Piecre Vautheir FAO, Field Program Manager, South Sudan Alexis Boute FAO, Deputy Coordinator for South Sudan Thomas Ngambawe OCHA, Rumbek, Analytical Information Officer SRRC Director BJS, Juba Ahuja Degarang UNICEF, Assistant Project Officer – HIV/AIDS,

South Sudan Dr. Martin Elia Lomuro Minister of Agriculture and Forests, GOSS, Juba Hon. Anthony L Makana (MP) Minister of Commerce, Trade and Supply, GOSS,

Juba Akuei Deng Ahuei Undersecretary, Ministry of Commerce, Trade and

Supply, GOSS, Juba Bellemans Marc FAO, Senior Emergency and Rehabilitation

Coordinator, SS-Juba Georget Ohech FAO, Deputy Emergency and Rehabilitation

Coordinator, SS-Juba Dr. Festo Kumba Minister of Animal Resources and Fisheries,

GOSS, Juba Dr. John Ogoio Kanisid Director, Planning, Statistics and Cooperation,

Ministry Of Animal Resources and Fisheries, GOSS, Juba

Susan Presmbafa Private Secretary to the Minister of Animal Resources and Fisheries, GOSS, Juba

Arnt Breivik WFP, Coordinator of South Sudan Abede Hankore Head of the Sub-Office, WFP, Juba Rhina Dudu Epharain Wally Field Monitor, WFP, Juba Charles Homoso Action Faim (ACF), Juba Kanuara Ebison George Norwegian Church Aid (NCA0), Juba Tiberious Lecca Sudan Council of Churches (SCC), Juba Michael Lugiri Swedish Free Mission (SFM), Juba Valentiw Tombe Sudan Aid, Juba Angustino Buya Agashual OXFAM, Juba Clement Waui Konga Governor, BJS

128

ANNEX 2

Domestic and Foreign Institutions Survey Sites

Khartoum

Ministry of Agriculture: Under Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Forests and the heads of the different departments

Ministry of Agricultural and Forests, Chairman of the Technical Committee on Food Security and the Food Security Unit

Ministry of Health – Nutritional Unit

Ministry of Animal Resources and Fisheries: Under Secretary

Ministry of Finance and National Economy

Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs

Ministry of Irrigation and Water Resources: Under Secretary

Ministry of Environment and Physical Development, Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources

Strategic Reserve Authority

National Forest Corporation

Agricultural Bank of Sudan

Bank of Sudan

FAO

WFP

UNICEF

Gadaref State

Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Wealth and Irrigation: Director-General

Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Wealth and Irrigation: Heads of the difference departments

Crops Market General Manager

Large Farmers’ Union

Small Farmers’ Union

Agricultural Bank of Sudan (ABS) – Gadaref Branch: General Manager

Bank of Sudan – Gadaref Branch: General Manager

129

Gezira State

Gezira Scheme: General Manager’s representative

Gezira Scheme: Director of the Planning and Socio-economic Research Administration

Gezira Scheme: Elshokaba Village Tenants

Gezira Scheme: Elwohda Village Tenants

Agricultural Research Corporation: Director-General

North Kordofan State

Ministry of Agricultural Animal Resources and Irrigation: Minister of Agriculture, Director-General and heads of different departments

North Kordofan State High Committee for Food Security

Agricultural Research Corporation, Elobied Station

North Kordofan Rural Development Project (IFAD)

Kordofan Food Security Project (Care International)

FAO Special Program for Food Security ‘Elsimeeh’

FAO Special Program for Food Security ‘Erlrahad’

WFP – Elobeid

Southern Kordofan State

Ministry of Agricultural Animal Resources and Irrigation: Minister of Agriculture, Director-General and heads of different departments

Ministry of Education, South Kordofan: Director-General

Government of South Kordofan: Secretary-General

Southern Kordofan Rural Development Program – IFAD

FAO – Southern Kordofan Food Security Program

Save the Children – Southern Kordofan

Dara Village Farmers (IFAD Project)

WFP, Kadoguli

South Sudan – Rumbek and Juba

WFP Sub-office, Rumbek

UNICEF – SS

New Sudan Center for Statistics

130

FAO Sub Office, Rumbek

OCHA, Rumbek

UNFPA, Rumbek

SRRC, Director for BJS

Minister of Agriculture, GOSS

Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Supply, GOSS

Head of FAO Office, Juba

Ministry of Animal Resources and Fisheries, GOSS

Governor of BJS

Action Faim (ACF)

Norwegian Church Aid (NCA)

Swedish Free Mission (SFM) 6.16 Sudan Aid

Oxfam GB

Sudan Council of Churches (SCC)

WFP South Sudan Coordinator

WFP Sub Office Juba

Subject Index 131

Subject Index

Accessibility 6, 20, 41, 77, 118

Administrative prices 41

Aggregate supply 27, 29

Aggregate demand 29

Agricultural sector 4, 16, 25, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 35, 44, 53

Agriculture 2, 4, 27, 28, 29, 30, 43, 44, 47, 48, 53, 64, 65, 86, 102, 112, 119

Animal restocking 52

Animal traction 52

Arab Authority for Agricultural Investment and Development (AAAID) 60

Asida 102

Availability 6, 13, 14, 20, 23, 31, 36, 41, 43, 59, 67, 69, 70, 76, 77, 79, 84, 88, 98, 108, 115, 118

Beneficiaries 18, 19, 20, 63, 84, 96, 97, 115, 121

Biodiversity 54, 66

Buffer stock 75, 78, 95

Capacity 1, 5, 7, 9, 12, 16, 22, 23, 24, 25, 50, 63, 71, 74, 82, 85, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 98, 99, 101, 102, 104, 105, 112, 116, 118, 120, 121

Capacity building 6, 35, 43, 74, 75, 87, 114, 121

Capital 9, 14, 30, 121

Child malnutrition 36

Child mortality 35

Chronic food insecurity 6, 13, 17, 19, 22, 99, 118, 121

Commercial displacement 116

Commercial imports 22

Committee on Social and Cultural Rights of the United Nations 15

Comparative advantage 38, 48, 51

Comprehensive National Strategy 27

Comprehensive Peace Agreement 35, 48, 84

Coping mechanisms 7, 12, 106, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117

132 Subject Index

Counter cyclical payments 42

Counter-cyclical safety net programmes 105

Creeping food insecurity 6, 13, 18, 118

Crop insurance 61

Crop intensification 64

Cropping intensity 58

Dara 110

Debt services 22

Declaration on Human Rights 15

Degree of desertification 17

Department of planning and agricultural statistics 78

Desert locust 77, 78

Desert, semi-desert, low rainfall savannah 66

Development 2, 4, 7, 12, 17, 22, 28, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 57, 60, 64, 67, 68, 69, 73, 85, 86, 88, 104, 105, 110, 113, 114, 116, 117, 121

Disaster Management 1, 5, 7, 72, 119

Dissemination 25, 63, 84

Domestic production 16, 71, 100

Drought monitoring centre 76

Drought resistant crops 49

Droughts 16, 17, 27, 67, 76, 113, 116, 118

Early Warning System 6, 41, 48, 73, 77, 78, 79

Ecological Zones 16, 17, 38, 54, 66

Economic access 1, 13, 14, 15, 118

Economic and social constraints 63

Economic inefficiency 101

Endogenous factors 27

Entitlement 14

Evaluation 40, 52, 121

Exogenous factors 27

Extension services 21, 52, 57, 62, 70, 108

Subject Index 133

FAO 1, 4, 8, 13, 14, 18, 23, 50, 51, 52, 57, 63, 64, 65, 66, 76, 77, 78, 79, 81, 83, 85, 88

Farming Systems 16, 31, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 70,

Feeder roads 60, 117

Feedlots 65

Financial and Monetary Polices

Financial institutions

Financing modalities

Floods 16, 27, 76, 77

Floor prices 41

Food aid 4, 12, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 41, 49, 73, 74, 75, 84, 94, 99, 113, 115, 116, 117, 121

Food aid dependency 49

Food aid programme

Food aid project

Food assistance 18, 20, 21, 22, 42

Food balance 22, 106

Food deficit index 77

Food for work 26, 51, 110, 114, 115

Food for work programme 26, 51, 114

Food gaps 16, 33, 73, 78, 121

Food insecurity 6, 7, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 37, 95, 99, 106, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117, 118, 121

Food security 1–122

Food security committee 48, 74, 125

Food security information 12, 15, 74, 76, 77, 78, 84, 87

Food security institutions 12, 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 85, 86

Food security related institutions 79

Food stores 48

Forestry 33, 48, 49, 54, 68, 69

Fruits tree planting

Gadaref 9, 11, 25, 59, 92, 100, 101, 124, 128

134 Subject Index

Gardood soils 63

Genetic stock 34, 67, 70, 134

Gezira 2, 4, 9, 11, 38, 39, 40, 56, 57, 58, 70, 81, 82, 88, 92,

Gezira Act 2005 38

Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) 48, 73

Gum Arabic 2, 4, 25, 61, 69

Hafirs 114, 115, 117

Healthy life 1, 6, 13, 14, 18

HIV/AIDs 35

Horizontal expansion 60

Household 6, 12, 14, 115, 16, 17, 20, 21, 25, 42, 44, 53, 62, 63, 69, 101, 106, 107, 109, 110, 112, 114, 116, 117, 118, 121

Household food security

Human capital 14, 121

Human Right 15

Humanitarian Aid Commissions

Humanitarian assistance 51, 113, 114, 123

Improved seeds 34, 64

Income distribution 102

Income support emergency and disaster relief 42

Income transfer systems 109

Inferior grains 116

Institutional and legal reforms 28

Institutional capacity support programme for an integrated food security, vulnerability and market information system 74

Integrated pest management (IPM)

Interim constitution 48

Interim poverty reduction strategy 35, 41

International office of epizootics 49

Irrigated 2, 4, 9, 16, 28, 34, 40, 44, 53, 56, 57, 58, 65, 77, 82, 83, 96, 107, 111, 119

Irrigated farming semi-mechanised rainfed crop production

Subject Index 135

Irrigated sub-sector 56, 57

Juba 10, 11

Kisra 102

Land reform 39

Land use rights 5, 60, 70, 119

Livelihood 6, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 40, 51, 53, 57, 74, 75, 76, 106, 107, 109, 112, 118

Local purchase of food supplies 51

Macroeconomic Adjustment Programmes

Macroeconomic externalities 102

Malnutrition 35, 36, 37, 72

Market cooperatives

Market development 51, 105, 113, 116, 121

Market-based responses 108, 109

Marketing board 88, 103

Marketing services 5, 57, 60, 119

Matmuras 90

MDGs 7, 32, 35, 36, 75

Mechanical harvesting 61

Medium Term Economic Programme 31, 33

Micro-finance 63

Ministry of agriculture and forests 1, 43, 71, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 85

Ministry of animal resources 49, 71, 78, 85

Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs 72, 77, 86, 114

Ministry of Irrigation 71, 77, 85

Mitigation 76

Monitoring 33, 49, 52, 73, 75, 76, 84, 91, 96, 121

Monitoring prediction early warning 76

Mountainous 17, 66

Multi-faceted concept 24

National Economic Salvation Programme 27

National forestry inventory 69

136 Subject Index

National strategies

Nature, extent and causes of price variability 100

NGOs 35, 49, 50, 52, 74, 76, 77, 94, 110, 121

Nile Water Agreement 77

Non-Market-based responses 109

Northern Kordofan 11, 63, 64, 74

Nutritional balance 14

Nutritious food 1, 6, 14, 118

On clay flood region 66

Over-valued currency 27, 29

Participant farmers 61

Participatory approach 35, 63, 117

Participatory training 58

Pastoralist nomadic 64

People’s livelihood 51, 76

Pest outbreaks 16

Physical capital 14

Planter sprayer 61

Policies 1, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 16, 25, 27, 28, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 40, 42, 44, 46, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 63, 67, 70, 71, 72, 73, 95, 103, 113, 118

Political economy 103

Poor 5, 7, 14, 18, 24, 25, 32, 35, 37, 42, 44, 57, 60, 62, 63, 73, 90, 92, 94, 101, 102, 104, 105, 107, 110, 111, 119, 120

Post harvesting operations 64

Poverty incidence 36, 42

Preventive strategy 78, 79

Price stabilisation 78, 100, 102, 103

Privatisation 67, 70, 72

Producer price support 105

Production-based responses 107

Pro-poor sectors 35

Subject Index 137

Public goods 67, 103

Public Investment 30

Rainfall insurance 116

Recovery 4, 22, 27, 97, 114

Remote sensing authority 77

Renewable natural resources 36

Resources-poor producers

Right to food 15

Rumbek 10, 11

Rural development 34, 35, 38, 40, 85, 86, 121

Rural Development Food Security and Poverty Alleviation Act 2005 38, 40, 85

Rural microfinance institutions 34

Safe 1, 6, 14, 32, 35, 37, 42, 62, 63, 105, 112, 116, 118, 121

Safety net programmes 105

Salam price 28

Satellite imageries

School feeding 51, 114, 117, 121

School feeding programme 121

Security strategy 1, 5, 25, 51, 73, 105, 118, 120

Sedentary 64, 65

Self-reliance 16, 51

Self-sufficiency 5, 7, 16, 22, 27, 29, 32, 33, 37, 54, 94, 107, 118

Self-targeting approaches 116

Semi-mechanised 16, 29, 30, 31, 53, 55, 59, 60, 82, 83, 95, 108, 119

Semi-secondary and intra-urban backyard sub-systems 64

Showan 90, 91

Silos 25, 90, 91

Social capital 14

Social resources 14

Southern Kordofan 10, 11

Sowibat 90

138 Subject Index

Special programme for food security 63

Stabilisation 78, 94, 100, 102, 103, 113

Stockholding operation 41

Strategic Grain Reserve 12, 25, 28, 33, 88, 94, 95

Structural 13, 19, 29, 37

Structural poverty 13

Sudan

Sudan appeal 113, 114

Sudan integrated food information system 85

Sudan Metrological Authority

Sufficient 1, 6, 14, 32, 53, 64, 69, 100, 101, 107, 118

Supplementary irrigation 34

Sustainable development 34, 46, 60

Swamp area 17

Technical training 52

Technological packages 4, 34, 119

Total utilisation 22, 23, 24

Trade liberalisation

Traditional rainfed 16, 31, 33, 35, 44, 54, 61, 62, 70, 82, 83, 108, 119

Traditional rainfed farming livestock 54

Transhumance 64, 65

Transient food insecurity 6, 17, 118

Transitory food insecurity 13

Transitory poverty 37

Under-and mal-nourishment 13

Underground pits 90

UNDP 1, 8, 36, 76

UNICEF 1, 9

Utilisation 6, 14, 15, 20, 22, 23, 24, 67, 77, 118

Variable tariffs 105, 120

Veterinary services 5, 50, 52, 67, 70, 120

Village groups 52

Subject Index 139

Vulnerable people 13, 14

Wars 16, 99

Water harvesting 34, 63, 64, 70, 108, 116

Water Management 57, 58

Water points 60

Water user associations 39

WFP 1, 8, 18, 19, 21, 23, 50, 51, 52, 76, 77, 79, 81, 83, 93, 94, 110, 114, 115, 117, 118

World food summit 1, 13, 15, 118

WTO agreements 37, 115

Zakat 28

Zero-tillage 60, 61

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