Executive Summary

Making rational use of the huge and diverse resources of the Sudan has been an unfulfilled promise and an outstanding challenge. Since the early days of Independence, successive plans and strategies to develop agriculture have been implemented. However, these plans had a limited success in achieving their objectives. The main reasons for the frustration of the agricultural development plans are: the low priority assigned to agriculture in the allocation resources, lack of political stability, the top-down approach to development which reduced rural producers to policy-takers rather policy-makers, and the weak administrative and implementation capacity of the government machine.

Two important recent developments have made focus on agricultural and industrial development an urgent issue:

The advent of oil as a major source of public revenue and export proceeds. Oil revenues constitute 50% of public revenue and 85% of total export proceeds. The risk of dependence on oil is very high because of its highly volatile international prices and because of the fact that it is a nonrenewable resource.
Accession of the Sudan to the WTO necessitates increasing the productivity of the agricultural sector and improving its competitiveness in local and international markets.

Recently, Sudan has taken a new and strategic direction to support agriculture. This new direction is manifested in the declaration of "The Green Mobilization" and the preparation of the Five-Year Strategic Plan. In continuation of this thrust, a high committee under the chairmanship of His Excellency, the Vise President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha has been formulated to study the present status of agriculture and articulate a future vision and action plan for Agricultural Revival.

The committee which consisted of a number of distinguished persons concerned with sector's development, including politicians, executives, researchers, producers, farmers' and pastoralists' unions, NGOs, private sector, civil society organizations and manufacturers, has put together a fully integrated programme that constitutes a national strategy for the Agricultural Revival as well as a compass for correcting the current programme and plans of ministries and institutions in the center and the states, in addition to establishing a monitoring and follow up system for assessing the results and impacts of the programme.

The programme was based on the following nine key indicators of success:

Creating an appropriate atmosphere for a sustainable development of agricultural production.
Capacity building of producers and institutions.
Addressing the issues of agricultural lands.
Developing support services.
Development and modernization of agricultural systems.
Protecting and developing natural resources
Agricultural industrialization
Implementation of quality control and safety measures
Establishment of international partnerships.

A number of programmes have been formulated to address these components for realizing the desired transformation. The most important features of these programmes are as follows:

First: The executive programme for Agricultural Revival has defined the macro and sectoral policies for creating an appropriate atmosphere for achieving agricultural and agricultural-led industrialization as well as setting a time-bound programme for execution in addition to defining the implementing entities.

Second: The programme defined the infrastructure conducive for agricultural development focusing on the following:

Water harvesting programmes, dams, hafeers in rainfed areas due to its significant importance for the stability of the ways of living of farmers and pastoralists, in addition to increasing production and productivity and providing drinking water for humans and animals.
Building agricultural rural roads, crossing points, bridges and Irish bridges which facilitate the movement of people, animals, products and agricultural inputs.
Establishing state-based primary cattle, vegetables and fruit wholesale markets. In addition, quays for cattle and plant products would be established at standards that meet quality and safety criteria. Laws and regulations will be issued for these markets to organize their work, taking into account marketing, storage and export facilities such as grain silos, quarantines, slaughterhouses, cooling, packaging, classification, and grading services to ensure marketing efficiency of agricultural and animal products.

Third: The programme includes projects for capacity building of producers and institutions, namely:

Æ Realizing qualitative transformation of producers through raising their productive efficiency in using modern technologies as well as developing their administrative capacities.

Æ Completing institutional reforms including the transformation of producers' unions to qualitative unions which place the issues of productivity and sustainable agricultural development at the top of their priorities.

Fourth: The programme proposed addressing land issues aiming at encouraging agricultural investment and sustainable land use through:

Registering the agricultural land and defining the citizens', villages' and groups' rights.
The rest of the land will be registered under government ownership and made available to investors.

Setting equitable rules for land lease and rent and reviewing existing relevant laws.

Fifth: The programme focused on the development of the supporting services through:

Enhancing and developing hydrological, plant, animal and industrial scientific research through building capacities, training of researchers, as research constitutes the spearhead for realizing the Agricultural Revival.
Enhancing the capacity of technology transfer and extension services using the village as a center for providing services and agricultural knowledge, in addition to introducing and adopting successful technologies aiming at increasing the productivity and improving the quality of products.
Rectifying agricultural education curricula and focusing on technical and technological education.
Enhancing the capacity of information and informatics institutions by providing them with up-to-date technologies and conducting the basic surveys particularly the comprehensive agricultural census (plant and animal).

Six: The Programme emphasized the development and upgrading of agricultural systems through:

Raising the efficiency of the existing irrigated schemes by upgrading irrigation management and systems, rationalizing water use, developing field irrigation, crop intensification, and integrating plant and animal production with conservation of forests, range and pastures.
Introducing modern types of animal and fishery production such as intensive rainfed and irrigated pasture farmer and ranches, aquaculture, as well as establishing wildlife reserves.

Seventh: The programme targeted the protection and development of natural resources through the following:

Developing forests and pastures as well as restoring the vegetative cover.
Combating desertification
Developing the gum arabic belt.
Establishing reserves and preserving wildlife.

Eighth: The programme included significant interventions to develop agriculture-based industrialization, including the utilizing of the idle capacities of the agro-industries.

Ninth: The programme underscored the importance of establishing international strategic partnerships with a view to transferring technologies, training, capacity building, expanding and developing markets.

Tenth: This programme is intended to create a conducive atmosphere for mobilizing the whole community and encouraging its participation in the agricultural activities, noting that the programme gives a greater support to the private sector capabilities by empowering it to play a greater role in the implementation of the programmes.

Eleventh: The programme recommended establishing agricultural commodity development councils (plants and animals) as a successful instrument used by many commodity-dependent countries for realizing the integration of the different activities in the commodity production and marketing chain through bringing together all the stakeholders concerned with the commodity in the areas of research, training, production, marketing, manufacturing, consumption and export. The programme also proposed functions and powers for these councils and some guidelines for their work.

Twelfth: The programme included a supervision and follow up mechanism chaired by H.E. the Vise President, in addition to a High Council for Agricultural Revival, and a General Secretariat responsible for mobilizing and following up revival programmes and projects including the commodity councils.

Thirteenth: The total cost of this programme during 2008 - 2011 is estimated at 10.1 billion SP: 2.4 billion SP for 2008, in addition to 2.5 billion for 2009, and same amount for 2010, and finally 2.7 billion SP for 2011. It is noteworthy that the contribution of the government constitutes 1.36 billion SP in the year 2008, (approved in the budget) and the cost required in 2009 is estimated at 1.34 billion SP and decreases to 1.1 and 1.0 billion SP in 2010 and 2011 respectively.

Fourteenth: Investing in infrastructure is given top priority at 39.4% of the developmental appropriations allocated for the programmes and projects during 2008, followed by food security, poverty reduction and rural development at 34.4%. developing and protecting natural comes in the third place at of 9.8% then comes the support services on the fourth place and the export infrastructure comes in the fifth place at 7.5% and 6.6% respectively. Capacity building, improving and upgrading agricultural systems and commodity councils take the rest of the appropriations.

Fifteenth: The total finance of programme amounts to 2905.15 million SP during 2008 and will rise gradually to reach 3422.74 million SP in 2011. This includes governmental contribution, foreign, bank-lending and self-financing in addition to the agricultural season's subsidies.

Total government financial contribution is estimated at 1279.4 million SP in 2008 and will decrease to 764 million SP in 2011 (from 44% to 22%). Foreign finance, including grants and loans to agricultural project from regional and international finance institutions will increase from 286 million SP to 385 million SP (from 9.9% to 11.1%). Finance by commercial banks will increase at an annual rate of 25% from 800 million SP to 1560 million SP (from 27.5% to 45.6%). Agricultural subsidies will decrease, with the improvement of infrastructure and supporting services, from 208 million SP to 120 million SP. Financing from farmers' own resources will increase from 540 million SP to 720 million SP (from 18.6% to 21.0%) during the same period. Self-financing may perhaps exceeds these estimates since the increase in productivity resulting from the implementation of the programme will improve the productive capacities of the producers to finance their agricultural activities.

Sixteenth: The programme is expected to achieve tangible results, most significant of which is the development of the farming systems and the generation of job opportunities in the agricultural sector, the agriculture-led industrial sector and the related service sectors. By introducing participatory methods of natural resources management, the programmes will also ensure sustainable use of these resources and reduce conflicts over them. Consequently the country will be able to reach self-sufficiency in those crops in which it enjoys a competitive edge, namely sorghum, millet, fruits and vegetables, oil seeds, livestock products, poultry and fish. Enough raw materials will also be produced to satisfy the existing idle capacity in the agro-industries.

Seventeenth: In terms of import substitution the realization of self-sufficiency in wheat will be a significant achievement of the programme. The value of wheat produced is estimated at US$ 1.15 billion. The present import bill of US$ 599 million will turn into a surplus of US$ 36 million by 2011. In the case of sugar, the deficit will decrease from US$ 84 million in 2007 to US$ 51 million in 2011 in spite of the expected increase in the population and the changing patterns of consumption towards sugar-based products as a result of increasing urbanizations. The increase in the production of these commodities will be an outcome of the package of key agricultural and livestock projects and the incentives which will be offered to investors.

Eighteenth: In the area of export promotion, the country will produce a minimum surplus of 2.4 million tons of sorghum annually. The current surge in the prices of cereals and the preferential prices paid by the Saudi Government to importers of cereals open windows of opportunity for export of sorghum. Similarly, exports of sesame are expected to increase from its current level of US$ 174 to US$ 360. Export karkade and watermelon seeds are expected to reach US$ 52 million, while groundnuts exports are expected to earn US$ 615. Proceeds of exports of fruits, vegetables fodder, and gum arabic are also expected to increase. In the case of cotton the expected increase in demand and prices in the international market will induce a greater supply through the increase of the area planted in the irrigated and rainfed sectors. Cotton export proceeds are expected to amount to US$ 884 million. All in all, the total export earnings of all crops is expected to reach US$ 4.5 billion in 2011 as shown in the annexes to this report.

Nineteenth: The export proceeds of the livestock sector are expected to increase from an estimate of US$ 274 in 2008 to US$ 635 million in 2011 (excluding boarder trade). The export proceeds of cattle, sheep, goats and camels will increase from US$ 11.8 million, US$ 141.3 million, US$ 5.2 million and US$ 33.6 million in 2008 to US$ 129 million, US$ 276.4 million, US$ 12.8 million and US$ 48.5 million in 2011 respectively. The export proceeds of fish, tauna and shrimp will increase from US$ 4 million, US$ 10 million and US$ 30 million in 2008 to US$ 10 million, US$ 30 million and US$ 60 million in 2011 respectively. The exports proceeds of hides and skins will increase from US$ 38.9 million in 2008 to US$ 68.4 million in 2011.

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