This program aims to transform Sudan’s agri-food system into a dynamic catalyst for unity, resilience, and sustained peace. The program emphasizes meaningful community participation across the agri-food value chain, prioritizing the responsibilities and rights of small-scale actors, who form the backbone of Sudan’s agri-food systems.

Historically, Sudanese agricultural and pastoral communities maintained a symbiotic relationship with their environment, relying primarily on sorghum and millet as dietary staples, with limited reliance on wheat. During the Anglo-Egyptian colonial period, food and security were wielded as tools of control. The colonial government introduced new agricultural technologies and exploited the land tenure system, linking access to these technologies with agricultural financial mechanisms to secure political allegiance and shift Sudanese communities from subsistence farming to export-oriented agriculture, emphasizing high-value cash crops such as cotton. While cash crop exports proved highly profitable for the colonial government and private sector entities, they did not lead to significant improvements in the livelihoods of local agropastoral communities. These policies laid the groundwork for Sudan’s statism and militarism, a legacy that persisted into the post-colonial era. As a peripheral British colony, Sudan adopted narrow, security-focused policies, with autocratic governors prioritizing annual budget reports over strategic planning. This shortsighted decision-making neglected the development and support of the local food systems, contributing to their deterioration and perpetuating a cycle of famine and food insecurity.

Post-independence, Sudan continued its extractive approach to agri-food development, increasingly relying on wheat imports. Initially provided as aid, wheat soon became a tool of external pressure and local political legitimacy, subjecting the state’s agri-food policies to international influence and making it vulnerable to global market fluctuations. This dependency was exacerbated by several factors: ongoing political instability, severe climate shocks, the financialization of the agri-food economy through market liberalization, and the negligent application of agricultural technologies and practices. Together, these dynamics deepened the food crisis, undermining local food production and exacerbating food insecurity.

Today, the culmination of these factors presents a bleak outlook for Sudan’s agri-food system. Despite multiple reform attempts, including 13 strategic plans developed since independence aimed at improving resource management in the agri-food system, famines have persisted in Sudanese communities, with the most severe documented in 1888-1891, 1896-1900, 1914, 1918-1919, 1925-1927, 1942-1943, and 1984-1985. Currently, only 20-30% of arable land is utilized, with significant soil degradation affecting non-cultivated areas due to decades of poor agricultural practices. This includes semi-mechanized agriculture, which displaced grazing, compacted the soil, and damaged microbial communities, rendering the land unsuitable for both agriculture and grazing. And despite abundant water resources, Sudan is classified as a water-scarce country.

This program explores alternative modalities to address the historical and structural factors that have perpetuated food crises and seeks to promote policies that empower local communities, ensuring equitable access to resources and decision-making processes. The program seeks to foster sovereign and self-reliant communities and enhance national food security.

Agri-food Systems library