September 11, 2013

Sudan plans to boost wheat production to cut imports

In order to cut the import tab for wheat, used to make bread, the Sudanese government announced that it plans to grow 600,000 acres of wheat.

Sudan currently imports more than two million tonnes of wheat annually at a cost of US$900 million.

The deputy director of Sudan's agricultural bank, Salah Hassan, said that wheat plantation project will kick off in the winter season adding that fertilisers and seeds have already been made available to farmers.

A committee was formed to develop and submit an action plan to raise productivity and underscored the government's keenness on increasing the domestic production of wheat, according to Hassan.

The Finance minister Ali Mahmoud Abdel-Rasool said that any delay in producing wheat locally will burden the government which will be forced to import at a higher cost due to the global increase in its prices.

Last May, Sudan's minister of agriculture, Abdel Halim Al-Mutafi, who was testifying before the parliament, acknowledged that there is a serious shortage in agricultural finance, saying that last year's allocated funds did not exceed SDG2.5 billion (US$570 million) which represents only 2% of the total loans extended by the banks nationwide.

The Minister questioned the possibility of achieving self-sufficiency and poverty alleviation, explaining that the country's imports of food products exceed US$1 billion, while spending on agricultural activities does not exceed a mere US$600 million saying he expects a grain shortage of up to 76,000 tonnes this year.

He noted that since a bag of beans is three times the price of a wheat bag, farmers prefer to grow crops which are more profitable than wheat.

Due to negligence, drought, mismanagement, high taxes and the overall economic climate, Sudan's agricultural sector has continued to deteriorate over the years. Sudanese farmers often complain about the high costs of imported materials such as fertilisers. Many of them were sent to jail as their debt piled up. Various ambitious plans enacted to bring life to the sector have failed to materialise and critics say the government forfeited a golden opportunity during the oil boom to beef up agriculture.

Foreign investors also complain about lack of infrastructure and unfriendly laws which they say deters them from putting money in Sudan's vast farmlands.