Sudan wheat harvest waits to rot as hunger crisis looms

Al-Laota, Sudan – (AFP)

Impoverished Sudan has for years been grappling with a grinding economic crisis, which deepened after last year’s military coup prompted Western governments to cut crucial aid.

The October coup derailed a fragile transition put in place following the 2019 ouster of president Omar al-Bashir.

Over 18 million people, nearly half the Sudanese population, are expected to be pushed into extreme hunger by September, according to United Nations estimates.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, both key grain suppliers, threatens to compound Sudan’s existing food security troubles.

Wheat imports from both nations make up between 70 and 80 percent of Sudan’s local market needs, according to a 2021 UN report.

Last month, dozens of wheat farmers from Sudan’s Northern State staged a protest outside the agricultural bank after it refused to take their harvest.

Farmers working the fields as part of the Al-Gezira scheme have over the years contributed only a small portion of Sudan’s annual wheat needs of 2.2 million tonnes.

This year, local wheat production was forecast to cover only a quarter of the country’s needs, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The finance ministry earlier this month said it was committed to building a strategic wheat reserve of up to 300,000 tonnes.

But the government “does not have the money to buy the harvest”, said an official with Sudan’s agricultural bank, which procures the wheat from farmers.

Traders have offered to buy the farmers’ wheat, but at far lower prices that barely cover the cost of production, according to Omar Marzouk, the governor of the Al-Gezira scheme.

As a result, he predicted that “farmers will opt against cultivating the grain next season”.