Sudan Expects Bumper Crop, Looks For More
03 November, 2014Khartoum (Sudanow) Plentiful, opportune and evenly distributed rainfall was a good omen for Sudanese farmers and agriculturists this year.
The adequate irrigation was , equally, good news for the African Union’s recommendation to make of 2014 a year for agriculture and food security in Africa.
Observers have noted good concern about that AU Goal at the highest levels of political decision-making in Sudan.
President Omal Al-Bashir had dispatched his First Vice President Bakri Hassan Salih and Agriculture Minister Ibrahim Hamid to attend the Malabo AU Summit that made the recommendation, and, then, coupled that concern with a number of directives meant to cut farming costs. Most outstanding among those directives was a presidential decree cancelling the tithing tax that had yoked Sudanese farmers since the Turkish rule of the country(1821-1885). The tithe is a ten-percent tax farmers used to pay at harvest time either in cash or in kind.
According to the Sudan Farmers Federation Deputy Chairman Bilal Awadalla the President also directed finance bodies to give priority to agricultural funding. Cash was ready at the right time, he said.
Awadalla said that, in keeping with the President’s directives, the Agricultural Bank of Sudan (ABS) had allocated an unprecedented budget enough to cultivate 10 million acres in the rain-fed sector, compared with 3 million acres in 2013.For the winter crop season (2014-2015) the Bank has set an ambitious budget of SDG1.7 billion to finance the cultivation of 970,000 acres with wheat and sunflower, he said.
He said most of the summer rain-fed crops such as sesame, ground nuts, sorghum and millet are expected to give a high yield, thanks to the adequate rainfall and the wide use of technological packages which was carefully guided and monitored by agronomists.
The Farmers Federation had earlier acknowledged the government attention to the rehabilitation of agricultural infrastructures. The federation had said that government effort had included the clearing of irrigation canals from silt, the pavement or repair of farm roadways, and the electrification of irrigation water pumps.
An official of the federal Ministry of Finance said the government was prepared to lend utmost support to agriculture. The official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to talk on the matter, said the government had pledged adequate sums to finance basic agricultural infrastructures and research bodies.The move, he said , is meant to attract more investors for agriculture. He said about 60 percent of irrigation pumps have now been electrified nationwide.
Sudanow has understood that, while the Federal Ministry of Finance has refrained from imposing any taxes on agriculture, some regional authorities do continue to collect unauthorized taxes on agricultural products.
Some economists say that , in theory, the general trend favours both federal and regional financial support for agriculture. However, a lot needs to be done to encourage regional bodies to lend a hand to agriculture. The established view of the Finance Ministry is that 10 percent of the national income should go to agriculture, according to those economists.
Still, the Farmers Federation is skeptic about this .While acknowledging the tendency; the Federation has stated that only 2-3 percent of the national income has so far been channeled towards agriculture.
Experts warn that a sharp crisis now faces small-scale African farmers due to climate change seen in the continuous droughts that hit most of the African states. Poor infrastructure is also a handicap to small scale farming in the Continent.
The African leaders participating in the Malabo AU Summit had called for 2014 to the year for food security in Africa. Sudan had pledged before the participants to complete the preparation of an investment plan that includes viable projects for food production in the country, in keeping with the FAO directives in this regard.
Agriculture Minister Ibrahim Hamid said Sudan had, during the Malabo AU Summit, signed a comprehensive development programme for Africa that aims to accelerate steps of agricultural growth and achieve targets of change which are expected to bear fruit by 2025.
Ibrahmi further disclosed that early estimates put the cultivated area during the summer season at 52 million acres in both the rain-fed and irrigated sectors of the country.
He said food and edible oil crops make up 45.2 acres of that area.
Observers note that Sudan’s long-time ambitions of vast food production are still alive .And those ambitions had , further, been resuscitated by the Arab Gulf states announced plan of 2008 for large scale agro investment Sudan. However, those observers cite the American sanctions imposed on Sudan as a big hurdle before those ambitions.
YH/ AS
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