Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Production and marketing systems of food security crops in the Sudan: A commodity approach analysis

19^th International Conference on Food Processing & Technology

October 23-25, 2017 | Paris, France

Khansa Osman Mahjoub Ibrahim

University of Khartoum, Sudan

Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

Sudan has several climatic zones that support the production of various crops in addition to being rich in its natural resources. The fertile land and variation in weather are suitable for producing cereal crops, oilseeds, cotton, vegetables and fruits and sugar cane in addition to livestock production. Sudan�??s economy is predominately agricultural (including crops, livestock, forestry, wildlife, and fisheries) which contributed about 30.6% of the GDP in 2013. The rate of growth of the GDP increased from 1.4% in 2012 to 3.6% in 2013. The rate of growth of the agricultural sector, on the other hand, decreased from 5.7 % in 2012 to 3.5 % in 2013 due to unfavorable rainfall conditions in the rain-fed subsector. Some 3.5 and3.6 million feddan of irrigated land were cultivated in 2012 and 2013 respectively compared to 37.6 and 47 million feddan of rain-fed land cultivated in 2012 and 2013 respectively. The food grains included irrigated wheat and sorghum and millet. The latter two are both irrigated and rain-fed. The purpose of this study is to investigate the production and the marketing systems of food security crops (mainly food grain) in the Sudan. Results showed that most of the agricultural production in Sudan is in the rain-fed, precisely the traditional farming and the semi-mechanized one. Climatic change, namely rainfall variability and soil degradation are the most important factors that caused loss of potentiality of farming and resulted in low productivity and production and hence limited food availability. The study showed that the marketing of food grain is still inefficient. The marketing margin has grown sharply over time, especially for sorghum followed by wheat and then millet since the early 1990s with the privatization and liberalization policies. To rectify the marketing of grain, the study recommends certain measures which include timely and sufficiently accurate market and food security information, consistent policies that reduce speculative behavior of grain traders and enhancing market connectivity especially between the food deficit and surplus zones.

Biography :

Khansa Osman Mahjoub Ibrahim has completed her PhD in Agricultural Economics from University of Khartoum in 2015. She worked as a Lecturer from 2006-2009 at Sudan Open University. She worked as a Lecturer from 2010-2013 at University of Khartoum.