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Sudan: Rich Farms, Conflict And Climate Change
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UN Integrated Regional Information Networks
22 May 2008
Posted to the web 22 May 2008
El Obeid
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has called for a moratorium on the expansion of large mechanised farms in Sudan's central semi-arid regions, sounding a warning that it was a "future flashpoint" for conflict between the farmers and pastoralists.
Northern Sudan's huge commercial farms have been blamed for fuelling conflict, driving small-scale farmers off the land and into menial jobs, environmental degradation and human rights abuses.
However, in its Green Programme, launched in 2006, Sudan's Government of National Unity has called for the expansion of both rainfed and irrigated mechanised agriculture.
Andrew Morton, project coordinator of UNEP's Post Conflict and Disaster Management Branch, said the moratorium was necessary because the farms were "already degraded in many areas, and a historic and potential future flashpoint for conflict between the numerous agricultural and pastoralist groups".
The solution might be to make better use of the land. "This can happen through rehabilitation and increased investment in sustainability and yields through options such as improved seeds, improved techniques, agro-forestry, the appropriate use of fallow periods, and crop rotation," he suggested.
"On the governance side, a key need is improvements to the land tenure regime [both the legal framework and its application] to allow for all three groups [mechanised farmers, pastoralists and small-scale farmers] to co-exist and cooperate under the rule of law," said Morton.
In the drive to establish mechanised farming large numbers of trees were cleared to make room for cropland, disrupting a fragile ecosystem already under considerable pressure from climate change and recurrent drought, according to various studies
In the drive to establish mechanised farming large numbers of trees were cleared to make room for cropland, disrupting a fragile ecosystem already under considerable pressure from climate change and recurrent drought, according to various studies. This not only sparked conflicts as fewer subsistence farming families had access to land, but also led to the degradation of the land denuded of trees and agriculturally overworked.
As droughts become more frequent and intense, particularly in the semi-arid regions, and pressure on water resources increased, enlarging big mechanised farms and establishing more of them was not a viable option, said Ahmed Hanafi, of the Ministry of Agriculture's Western Sudan Resources Management Programme, which is financed by the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
In an effort to redress the past the government recently set up two land commissions - one national and one for Southern Sudan - to help arbitrate disputes over ownership and ensure that land is used efficiently. Since there is now less land available, aid agencies have emphasised the need to shift to promoting small-scale agriculture, especially in the semi-arid regions.
History of conflict
Mohamed Suliman, chair of the UK-based Institute for African Alternatives, a policy research network, noted in one of his several papers on land management that the Sudanese government had allocated parcels of land big enough to make commercial farming viable to absentee merchants, politicians and soldiers.
The purpose had been to implement mechanised farming, as part of a national programme to revive agriculture in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile State, during the late 1960s and early '70s, financed in part by the World Bank.
Analysts have said this was a major reason for conflict in these two regions, as it drove the displaced small-scale agricultural and pastoral farmers into the arms of the rebel Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), and fuelled a 21-year civil war that ended with a peace agreement in 2005.
In testimony recorded by Suliman on the spread of mechanised farming in Sudan's Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan State during the 1970s, a civil servant recalled how those who were powerful and well-connected were able to seize land.
"The government just demarcates land, regardless of the realities of the area; they do not care if there are villages in this land or not. In the area of Habila, in the Nuba Mountains, mechanised farms have circled many villages," the civil servant said.
"There is no more land for the Nuba; no land for farming and no land for the animals to graze. The Nuba are squeezed and have to choose between two options: either leave the area to work for the government as soldiers, or become workers in a mechanised farming scheme."
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The story of the Nuba is just one of many similar histories across Sudan. The mechanisation of rain-fed agriculture was initiated by the British in Gedaref in 1944 to meet the food needs of their army in East Africa. The Sudanese government expanded mechanised farming after independence in 1956, and encouraged the private sector to invest.
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