# III. Agriculture in Sudan

Sudan has a diversified crop portfolio, grown in diverse agro-climatic conditions. This includes cereals (such as sorghum, millet, wheat, rice and maize), oilseeds (mainly sesame, groundnut and sunflower), industrial crops (cotton and sugarcane), fodder crops (alfalfa, fodder sorghum and Rhodes grass), pulses (broad beans and pigeon peas), and horticulture crops (okra, onions, tomatoes, citrus, mango, and so on). Rural households are also extensively engaged in animal husbandry, with an estimated livestock population of 109 million heads of cattle, sheep, goats, camels, and others across the country in 2018 (FAO 2019).

Crop production in Sudan is practiced under three main patterns, which influence the type of crop grown (FAO 2019).

- (a) Irrigated agriculture includes large-scale irrigation schemes using  the Nile and its tributaries (such as the world’s largest, the Al Gezira Scheme), large-scale irrigation schemes using seasonal floods, and small-scale irrigation practiced by individual households along the banks of the Nile and its tributaries. The principal crops of the irrigated sector include sugarcane, cotton, sorghum, groundnut, wheat, vegetables, fruits, and green fodder.

- (b) Semi-mechanized rain-fed agriculture is practiced across approximately 6.7 million ha and receives 500 mm average rainfall annually. It is practiced in the states of Kassala, Gadarif, Blue Nile, Sinnar, White Nile and South Kordofan. In this region, Sudan's staple sorghum accounts for 80 percent of the cultivated land and produces around 45 percent of the country’s requirement. Other crops include sesame, sunflower, millet, and cotton.

- (c) The traditional rain-fed agriculture covers 9 million ha. This is the combined acreage of irrigated and semi-mechanized rain-fed agriculture. Due to the small scale of householdmanaged traditional rain-fed agriculture, it employs the greatest share of the population. Though such farming is found throughout the country, it is predominant in the west of the country, in the regions of Darfur and much of Kordofan. Subsistence crops such as sorghum and millet are the norm, but commercial crops, such as groundnut, and increasingly, sesame, are also grown on a small scale.

## Crops and Livestock

### Crops Grown

Sorghum is the most common crop grown by crop-producing households in Sudan, followed by millet (Figure 19 **Error! Reference source not found.** ). According to the 2014/15 survey, close to half the households engaged in crop farming grow sorghum. This has changed little since 2009, when slightly more than half of all households grew sorghum (note the list of crops in 2009 is different from those in 2014/15). Approximately one-third of crop-producing households grow millet. This proportion has increased slightly since 2009. Other common crops grown are sesame, groundnut, and tea (mainly hibiscus in Kordofan). These statistics represent households that identify a crop cultivated for their own consumption. Households that work the land with laborers and identify their income as ‘wages and salaries’ do not report which crop they grow. These statistics do not represent the proportion of crops 21