If this is so, then the necessary infrastructure of road, rail, and river transport will have to be provided, enabling supplies to be brought in from greater distances, even from overseas, and paid for out of export earnings. At present the concept of an area specializing in what it can grow best is only dimly perceived in rural Sudan. Most peasants, including those of the White Nile, perceive things differently. In a desert margin area where periodic food shortages are common and animals have to be moved from pasture to pasture, the peasant is highly reluctant to give up basic food crops and to cultivate a different crop for sale, using his money income to buy his necessities. Undoubtedly, top priority for White Nile folk is to secure one's own food supply and feed for one's animals.
Cash is of a much lower priority.
This need for security underlies the decision of the farmers on the Gummuiya irrigation scheme to grow lucerne and sorghum rather than potentially lucrative fruit and vegetables for the nearby Khartoum market. The general shortcomings of many of the government irrigation schemes in the White Nile can only in part be put down to the failure of peasants to seize apparent opportunities for increased cash income. Peasants are rational, even if illiterate, and react in a way that seems right to them, given their own viewpoint. Much of the blame must be placed before management and government. Incompetent and uninterested management with little real commitment to a scheme is a frequent complaint.