The perishing of almost 200 farmers, suffocating in the tiny cell to which they were sent for laying out their demands to the first independent government in February 1956, was the ultimate fidelity that post-colonial rulers could show to the extractive model of their predecessors. What later known as Jouda events, were mainly triggered by cotton farmers along the White Nile pump-irrigated projects, mostly privately-owned, who expressed several demands, among which were their unpaid three years dues and the recognition of their farmer union.
While exports of cash crops, cotton mainly, were highly lucrative for both governmental and privately owned schemes during the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium times, Niblock (1987:46) points to how this has never materialized into significant ameliorations of the livelihood of agricultural communities. Production conditions experienced by farming communities were similar to that of Jouda farmers; with the already unfair cash-cropping agreements not being honored (Ali, 1994: 81).
Post-independence agricultural policy frames, showed no signs of interest in the country’s food sovereignty. Pimbert (2009) lays a holistic model for food sovereignty that centers the interests of local farmers and local communities at large. Such as prioritizing food production for local markets rather than exports of cash crops, public or community control over productive resources rather than their privatized and monopolistic control. This model stands in contrast to the historical agenda of Sudan’s agricultural sector that has been putting the accent on flows of hard currency, competitiveness, attractiveness for investors, rather than the food security or livelihood of the thousands of farming communities.
