In the Gedaref area, many mechanized cultivations have already been abandoned in favour of new virgin land and sometimes serious sheet erosion has resulted. Dura is normally sold by the sack. The prices received therefore varied between S 2.00 and S 3.00 per sack in 25 schemes where this information was available. The price in the lower range would probably represent shall transactions when the crop is sold before harvest. The higher price could well be reported by scheme owners who were also merchants and so could presumably obtain higher than average returns.
Prices also vary according to whether the local produce tax.
In the Gedaref region this tax is assessed at 12.5 per cent of the estimated production of each scheme and the crop is not supposed to leave the farm until the tax is paid. The break-even point was 310 kg per feddan. From those results it must be assumed that only half of the schemes were able to make a surplus at all. The variation of those schemes with positive figures was quite large. Nine schemes earned up to S 990 surplus, five between S 1.000 and 1,999, one between S 2,000 and 2,999, two between S 3.000 and 3,999.