They are agriculturists, growing two crops a year of maize, finger millet, groundnuts, sorghum, cassava, and rice. Even in the bad year of 1995, Operation Lifeline Sudan recorded crop production at 150 percent of total household needs. A large variety of other food sources, including yams, mangoes, and honey, along with fish, are also available. The hill and mountain zone in Eastern Equatoria receives anywhere from 750 to 2,200 mm of rain per year in its higher elevations. With relatively few rivers, fish are not an important component of the diet.
Households collect wild foods and trade surplus grain for livestock with neighboring pastoralists.
This zone is in a contested area, and consequently production has been disrupted as households have used the fertile valleys less and intensified cultivation higher in the hills. The arid zone, in Sudan's southeastern corner, is inhabited by agropastoralists. Livestock products provide two-thirds of local diets. The already limited crop production has been reduced as households have been displaced from the most reliable and productive arable lands. This zone is the most vulnerable to drought-induced food shortages.