The trade-off between economic efficiency and food self-sufficiency in using Sudan's irrigated land resources

Abstract

A shift in Sudan's food production strategy towards more reliance on the irrigated sector for food supply has been induced by the severe food shortages following the early 1980s drought and reduced availability of food aid. Coupled with the high yield potential of irrigated wheat under modern technology revealed by recent research results, this led to significant expansions in the areas of irrigated food crops, especially wheat after 1989. This paper used domestic resource cost analysis to examine whether the expansion in irrigated wheat production represents the most efficient option for using Sudan's irrigated land resources as compared to cotton, the country's most important cash crop competitor. At the 1993 prices, medium-staple cotton dominated various wheat technologies in terms of economic efficiency. An efficiency frontier was constructed to evaluate the sensitivity of competitiveness results to changes in productivity gains and price shifts. Wheat yields currently achieved by average farmers on the scheme need to increase by more than 50% for wheat to compete with cotton at the 1996 prices. In other words, currently one ha of exported cotton generates economic returns that are sufficient to import about 50% more wheat than can be domestically produced from the same ha under average farmers' practices in Gezira. In addition to its superiority over wheat in economic efficiency terms, cotton has larger employment benefits than wheat, being the more labour intensive enterprise. This means that expanding irrigated wheat production in Gezira for food self-sufficiency at the expense of cotton reduces employment opportunities in addition to compromising economic efficiency. Priority should therefore be given to increased investment in research on improving cotton production technology, marketing and lint quality. On the other hand, it is important to introduce more effective policy measures for faster adoption of improved wheat technologies to close the gap between potential and current yield levels.