The war that erupted on April 15, 2023 thrust new issues to the forefront, postponed others, and consigned yet more to the margins. Elections for a body representing farmers of Al-Jazirah and Al-Managil Scheme were not immune to the war’s repercussions.
While elections have been held in the scheme before, this is the first such process since the outbreak of the conflict.
Last August, Prime Minister Kamil Idris visited Al-Jazirah Scheme and addressed a gathering of farmers at the project’s headquarters in Barakat
Among those who spoke at the gathering was Al-Tayyib al-Imam Gouda, the amir of Al-Kawahla al-Nifidia tribe in Al-Jazirah State and a prominent figure in the local popular resistance. Gouda told the Prime Minister that the scheme does not suffer from structural problems; rather, what it lacks is an organizational framework capable of uniting farmers and defending their interests. During the meeting, the Prime Minister issued a decision to initiate the formation of farmers’ associations.
In October 2025, Gouda led a group of farmers to Wad Madani demanding the swift establishment of the associations. At the time, he said his efforts were aimed at implementing the Prime Minister’s directive to form a representative body for farmers, questioning the Registrar General of Agricultural and Animal Production Professions as to the reasons behind the delay in executing the decision. Implementing it, he argued, would finally achieve a long-standing demand of farmers to establish a body that represents them.
The Registrar General subsequently announced the start of the formation of grassroots associations across Al-Jazirah Scheme and Al-Managil Extension, with elections scheduled for March and April.
Farmers were invited to pay the prescribed fees to obtain certificates of incorporation and board membership. Preliminary voter lists had earlier been published between November 16 and 22, after which a period for appeals and corrections was opened.
Yet a fierce contest has emerged between Gouda, an ally of the Sudanese Army since the war began, and members of the executive bureau of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) in Al-Jazirah State, notably Sifyan al-Basha and al-Shami Badr. The latter previously chaired the agricultural production professions associations now at the centre of the dispute.
Badr had long been a formidable rival of Gouda, who now seeks to inherit the position Badr left when the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took control of Al-Jazirah State.
Farmers in Al-Jazirah Scheme, and later Al-Managil Extension gained the right to establish a union to defend their interests in 1954. Even before that, the project had witnessed intense social and political contestation among large landholders, small farmers, and later agricultural labourers. Over the decades, numerous associations, committees, and unions have emerged and disappeared in tandem with broader political shifts.
Structure of the Al-Jazirah Scheme and Al-Managil Extension
As one of the world’s largest irrigated agricultural schemes, Al-Jazirah Scheme relies on a highly structured administrative and technical system designed to ensure the delivery of water to every hawasha (individual farm plot) and to manage agricultural operations efficiently.
- Divisions:
The division is the largest administrative and technical unit within the scheme, effectively functioning as a regional management authority overseeing a vast area. Al-Jazirah Scheme and its extension are divided into 18 divisions: ten within the original Al-Jazirah project—Al-Awsat, Al-Masallamiya, Al-Housh, Wadi Sha’ir, Wad Habbouba, Northern, Northwestern, Abu Quta, Southern, and Eastern—and eight in Al-Managil Extension- Al-Huda, Ma’touq, Al-Mansi, Al-Tahamid, Al-Maturi, Al-Mukashfi, Al-Jamusi, and Al-Shawwal. Each division is headed by a senior agricultural inspector—now titled “Division Director” following Al-Jazirah Scheme Act of 2005. The director oversees the overall planning of the cropping cycle, the provision of inputs such as seeds and fertilizers, and the supervision of subordinate offices. Each division contains between four and eight offices.
- Blocks (Offices):
The office, or block, is the frontline administrative unit that interacts directly with farmers. It is led by a supervisor, formerly known as a block inspector, supported by several assistants. These offices record cultivated areas, monitor crop conditions, distribute seeds, and ensure farmers adhere to the prescribed crop rotation. The scheme contains more than 120 such offices.
- Irrigation Canals:
This is primarily an engineering and hydrological classification rather than a purely administrative one. Irrigation in Al-Jazirah depends on natural gravity flow. The canal system is hierarchical: main canals such as al-Kanar 10 and al-Kanar 57 draw water directly from the Sinnar Dam; secondary canals branch from them to serve specific areas; major canals supply clusters of offices; and minor canals run alongside farmers’ fields. From these, water is drawn through smaller channels known as Abu Ishreen to irrigate crops.
These divisions operate in an integrated manner, where the office supervisor calculates the water requirements based on crop type and cultivated area, then requests the needed volumes from irrigation engineers responsible for the canals.
Calls to Postpone the Elections
Reviving Al-Jazirah Scheme will require substantial effort from all partners in production.
Sufyan al-Basha
Controversy intensified in Al-Ni’ma office in Al-Mansi division of Al-Jazirah Scheme. Sifyan al-Basha farms in that office, which represents the starting point for his potential ascent to higher positions within the emerging association structure.
According to farmers in the division, tensions escalated to the point that a delegation travelled to the project headquarters in Barakat in January to meet the Registrar of Agricultural Professions in Al-Jazirah. They warned that proceeding with elections in the current charged climate could trigger serious security instability.
One member of the delegation told Atar the proliferation of weapons among mobilized volunteers, rising tensions within the division, and grassroots rejection of the way some candidates had presented themselves could cause the elections to unravel the fragile social peace in the area.
The same source, who sought anonymity, revealed that complaints had been filed with security authorities in the state capital, Wad Madani, regarding irregularities in some offices. These included the inclusion of individuals with no ties to agriculture in the electoral process, allegedly facilitated by what he described as troubling leniency from certain executive authorities.
Farmers demanded the immediate postponement or cancellation of the elections and called for direct intervention by security agencies, as well as urgent coordination with the Registrar General to restore order to the process.
The Registrar eventually returned the voter lists for Al-Mansi division to agricultural offices for correction and review in preparation for a new vote. A similar controversy unfolded in the neighbouring Al-Huda division, home to the Sarhan office, a stronghold of Al-Tayyib al-Imam Gouda.
Farmer and lawyer Salah Abdalla al-Mahl told Atar that the associations’ elections there were conducted with the participation of only a handful of farmers. Out of approximately 11,000 farmers in the division, he said, only 30, supporters of Sifyan al-Basha, took part in the vote.
Farmers in Al-Huda later convened and declared the process illegitimate. They called for the associations to be rebuilt from the grassroots, with membership lists restricted to genuine stakeholders, independent election committees, full transparency in membership and financing, and meaningful representation for Al-kanabi communities (agricultural labourers’ camps) and agricultural labourers. One farmer indicated that legal complaints and administrative appeals were being prepared.
In a Facebook post, Sifyan al-Basha described himself as a landowner, arguing that discussions about land issues in Al-Jazirah Scheme often involve deliberate misrepresentation. Allegations against him and his movement, he said, were unfounded.
“I am a farmer before I am a member of any political organization,” he wrote.
Speaking to Atar, al-Basha acknowledged the systematic destruction Al-Jazirah Scheme has endured. Reviving the project, he argued, will require substantial effort from all partners in the production process.
Farmers, he said, must unite and set aside their differences through the formation of producers’ organizations capable of mobilizing available resources and addressing problems such as irrigation management, financing, crop planning, and productivity.
According to al-Basha, the associations should also explore ways to capture added value from agricultural products, improve farmers’ incomes, and enter partnerships with investors possessing technical and financial capacity.
Al-Basha, argues that there is no reason to turn the process of forming the associations into a yardstick for political rivalry.
“Rather, they should be used as an outlet for developing more successful programmes for reform and development. If a party or individual is unable to present an organizational programme, constructive proposals, or sound ideas for managing agricultural work in the scheme, and instead resorts to manufacturing conflict with us, then we consider that a ‘battle without a battlefield’—a clear indication of their inability and failure to address farmers’ concerns,” he said.
“Some of those who attempted to compete in the farmers’ organizations have already been passed over by the farmers’ own choices and have fallen by the wayside; others will fall at the level of the local offices. Most of them are not even farmers in Al-Jazirah Scheme, which confirms that they are acting on behalf of a political actor seeking to monopolize the leadership of the farmers’ organization in order to facilitate the destruction of what remains of the project, thereby entrenching its political and economic interests at the expense of the farmer,” al-Basha said
Regarding public services provided to citizens through official authorization and implementation channels, al-Basha argued that community leaders should press the relevant state institutions to deliver those services.
Explaining his position, he said “Al-Jazirah has only recently emerged from a brutal occupation that destroyed many public service facilities. It is therefore natural for people to seek whatever services that can now be provided. Anyone who speaks about alternative ways of delivering services outside official channels, I believe, is simply unfamiliar with how such services are actually implemented. Such a person’s position is invariably negative.”
Al-Basha also acknowledged receiving support from the Finance minister during the floods that struck parts of Al-Jazirah Scheme in 2020. He said he had chaired a committee formed by the farmers’ leadership that secured roughly 40,000 sacks of urea fertilizer, in addition to 20,000 sacks of wheat seeds—the latter supplied through the Zakat Chamber.
These allocations, he noted, were overseen by Al-Jazirah Scheme administration, the project’s economic security authorities, and the Zakat Chamber.
Where Does the Army Stand?
The current conflict among government allies in Al-Jazirah is a consequence of the war.
Mohamed Ali Mahla
Toum al-Khair Abdel-Sawi, an observer of Al-Jazirah Scheme affairs, linked recent developments to a visit by the army commander, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to areas in Al-Jazirah State earlier this February. The areas visited include Abu Haraz, Tayba Al-Sheikh Abdel-Bagi Quranic School, and Sarhan.
During the visit to Sarhan, what was called the “Farmers’ Call” was announced and signed in the presence of Al-Tayyib al-Imam Gouda.
The declaration, signed by political and social leaders alongside Sheikh al-Rayyah Sheikh Abdullah Azraq Tayba, the head of the Qadiri Araki Sufi order, called for the establishment of agricultural and livestock production associations and the protection of farmland.
Abdel-Sawi told Atar that the visit clearly signaled the Sudanese military leadership’s alignment with Gouda in his confrontation with representatives of the JEM.
Meanwhile, some farmers accuse Finance Minister Jibril Ibrahim and his movement of attempting to exert influence over Al-Jazirah Scheme by installing loyal cadres in key positions and deploying financial resources to tip the balance in favour of al-Basha and al-Shami Badr.
The Ministry of Finance, however, stated on February 5 that Al-Jazirah Scheme does not fall under its authority, emphasizing that the project is an independent entity under Al-Jazirah Scheme Act of 2005 (amended in 2014), which defines it as a national economic and social project with diversified activities and an independent legal personality with administrative, financial, and technical autonomy.
Speaking to Atar, Mohamed Ali Mahla, an advocate for the rights of agricultural labourers and residents of al-kanabi settlements, said the current conflict unfolding among government allies in Al-Jazirah is a consequence of the war and the deep social divisions and polarization it has produced across Sudan.
He pointed to efforts by the JEM to build political and social constituencies within farming communities, noting that the present struggle concerns farmers themselves and does not directly involve agricultural labourers.
The accusations directed at labourers and Al-kanabi residents, he added, are longstanding and have historically appeared within the broader social conflicts that have characterized Al-Jazirah Scheme.
According to Mahla, hostile rhetoric targeting agricultural labour communities tends to resurface depending on the circumstances, often as a means of isolating and punishing those communities while denying them equal citizenship rights, fair labour and housing conditions, and equitable relations of production and opportunities for advancement within Sudanese society.
He described this pattern as an evasion of the responsibilities owed to these marginalized groups.
What does the Farmers’ Alliance say?
Mohsen al-Ni’ma, a leading figure in Al-Jazirah and Al-Managil Farmers’ Alliance, told Atar that the alliance’s position remains firmly opposed to the agricultural and livestock production associations currently being formed. The alliance, he said, views them as a tool designed to fragment farmers’ unity and ultimately facilitate the seizure of their land and the looting of the scheme’s assets.
Al-Ni’ma argues that the only legitimate alternative is a farmers’ union emerging organically from the grassroots, one that functions as a trade-union platform representing farmers and defending their interests. He characterized the current struggle between the camps of Al-Tayyib al-Imam Gouda and Sifyan al-Basha as a conflict with long-term strategic dimensions.
In his view, Gouda’s motivations are shaped by what he described as “narrow” tribal, social, and regional considerations.
Having gained prominence during and after the April 15 war in Al-Jazirah, Gouda is now seeking leadership of the farmers’ movement, al-Ni’ma said, without presenting a clear reform vision for Al-Jazirah Scheme or a defined programme for its future.
By contrast, he argued that al-Basha represents “part of a broader plan aimed at advancing the ambitions of domestic and external actors seeking control over the scheme’s lands.”
Al-Ni’ma also suggested that, following the RSF’s consolidation of control in Darfur, the JEM no longer enjoys the same position it once held there and is therefore searching for new areas of influence beyond its traditional strongholds.
At the same time, he said, Jibril Ibrahim, who serves both as Finance minister and leader of the movement, is seeking political gains for his organization. He further accused al-Basha of purchasing solar-power units for villages using funds channelled through the Ministry of Finance, describing the move as a “squandering of public money.”
Gouda echoed similar accusations, albeit indirectly, in a press statement following a meeting with Sheikh Azraq Tayba. He warned against what he described as “soft infiltration” through the buying of loyalties, the manipulation of laws, the politicization of livelihoods, and the manipulation of farmers’ will.
“We clearly warn against exploiting the issue of solar energy systems and transforming it from a public service into a political tool,” Gouda said. “These systems are public property belonging to the National Water Corporation and financed by the Ministry of Finance to operate water wells and serve needy villages. They are not the property of individuals or political parties.”
“A Political Conflict Above All”
This is not about farmers’ concerns, it is a tug-of-war of political manoeuvring.
Farmer al-Khair Musa
Farmer al-Khair Musa told Atar that the current struggle surrounding the agricultural production associations does not reflect the authentic aspirations of farmers.
“What we are witnessing is not a movement born from farmers’ concerns,” he said. “It is a tug-of-war driven by cheap political manoeuvring from armed groups, political actors, and individuals who have appointed themselves guardians of Al-Jazirah.”
According to Musa, the conflict being presented to the public as a farmers’ dispute is, in reality, a political struggle in which farmers are used as instruments while their suffering becomes a façade.
“Who among them is speaking about irrigation maintenance? Who is addressing water shortages? Who has proposed solutions for the winter cropping season or fair prices for wheat and cotton?” he asked. “None of that is on their agenda. What matters to them are positions, influence, and personal gain.”
Mohamed Ahmed Himatak, a farmer in Al-Huda division, agrees with al-Khair that the current struggle over the leadership of the associations is hardly surprising, as it is driven by a desire for control and ownership.
“Conflict among the components of power led to war,” Himatak told Atar. “So when the objective is personal interest, conflict can arise even within a single household.”
He attributed this situation to what he described as the complex nature of production relations within the scheme, particularly between the government, farmers, and agricultural labourers. Himatak called for more equitable production relations, including the establishment of a trade union body representing agricultural labourers and defending their interests, rather than having them drawn into one side or another in conflicts like the one currently unfolding.
For many farmers, the real struggle lies not in leadership positions but in the fields themselves. As farmer Mohamed Abdel-Gadir Jabir put it: the conflict between Gouda and al-Basha is happening “up there,” while the farmer’s true problem is “down here, in the soil,”in deteriorating irrigation canals, lack of financing, fertilizer shortages, and the absence of fair indicative prices for crops.
