Vol. 5 · No. 1 · 2001 · pp. 134-153 (19)

Hassan Mohammed Nur

Introduction

Sudan is primarily an agricultural country, with a total area of 600 million feddans, of which one-third is potentially arable. Eighty percent of its 25 million population is involved in farming. The annual contribution of this sector to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the period 1990/91-1994/95 was thirty-seven percent on average (The Economic Review, 1994/95) and its yearly contribution to the state's export earnings is over ninety percent. Livestock, which plays a major role in agriculture, consists of 30 million, 37 million, 33 million and 3 million heads of cattle, sheep, goats and camels respectively (Livestock Economics Dept. 1994). Animal husbandry provides partial and/or full subsistence to approximately forty percent of the country's inhabitants (Ali 1988, Robinson 1987, Abdalla 1985) and its contribution to the agricultural sector in terms of GDP ranges between thirty-five and fifty-two percent, averaging roughly twenty percent (The Economic Review 1994/95); it counts for about one-quarter of Sudanese foreign exchange returns since 1993 (Bank of Sudan data). Over ninety percent of herds in the country are in the hands of pastoral communities, comprising what is generally known as a traditional sector, and herding is based entirely on natural pastures, characterised by migratory movements between dry and we retreat lands.