With the onset of June each year, Darfur’s farmers begin preparing and clearing their land for cultivation, relying on the seasonal rains that typically arrive in the month and continue until early October.
During this period, the farmers sow staple food crops such as sorghum and millet, alongside cash crops like groundnuts, sesame, watermelon seeds, and hibiscus.
Current realities on the ground, however, suggest that this year’s agricultural season in Darfur is approaching a critical juncture that threatens a near-total collapse in production.
Agriculture, once the region’s primary economic activity, has increasingly become a daily struggle for survival fraught with risk and uncertainty.
East Darfur
If I could somehow forget the bitterness of last season, where would I find the money to finance my farming now?
Brima Ali Al-Jagoul, farmer, East Darfur
At the Ghazala Jawazat Agricultural Project near Ad-Deain, the capital of East Darfur State, farmer Brima Ali Al-Jagoul enters this year’s farming season burdened by circumstances that, he said, have persisted throughout two lean years shaped by war, insecurity, dwindling resources, and soaring production costs.
The previous season, he says, brought such formidable challenges that he has seriously considered abandoning cultivation altogether this year.
“If I could somehow forget the bitterness of last season,” he told Atar, “where would I find the money to finance my farming now?”
Al-Jagoul owns 20 mukhammassat, equivalent to roughly 30 feddans, along with additional plots belonging to relatives displaced by the war and scattered across Sudan and beyond. He currently oversees these lands himself.
“You look around,” he said, “and see fertile land ready for cultivation, land that once yielded millet, sorghum, groundnuts, sesame, hibiscus, watermelon seeds, and gum Arabic.”
According to Al-Jagoul, the greatest challenge facing farmers in East Darfur this season is their inability to cultivate sufficient portions of their land. Limited resources, sharply rising prices for agricultural inputs such as seeds and farming tools, and the steep cost and scarcity of fuel have all combined to undermine production.
Preparing a single mukhammas requires three gallons of diesel fuel. A single gallon, when available, sells for approximately 60,000 Sudanese pounds.
Al-Jagoul noted that insecurity, now a defining feature of wartime life, has become a major impediment to agricultural activity.
“Security challenges have severely affected farming,” he recounted. “Reaching our fields and moving between areas has become extremely difficult and often unsafe. Simply setting out for your farm may bring you face to face with armed groups engaged in looting and banditry. Going to cultivate your land can cost you your life.”
If you survive, you may consider yourself fortunate even after being stripped of everything you own, no matter how little it is. The farmer’s condition resembles that of domesticated birds that flee their nests at the sound of gunfire,” he added. “A farmer needs security in order to plant. Agriculture often requires spending days in open areas, far from settlements.”
The Ghazala Jawazat Research Station was established in 1954 as a centre for livestock breeding and rangeland improvement and was officially inaugurated in 1957.
Located in East Darfur State’s Assalaya locality, within the Klikli Abu Salama administrative unit, it lies approximately 24 kilometres north of Ad-Deain.
Covering an area of 20 square miles enclosed by barbed-wire fencing, the station encompasses a variety of soil types suitable for research and mixed farming. It was once among Sudan’s most important livestock research facilities, strategically situated in the heart of South and East Darfur’s livestock-producing belt. Its original mission was to improve cattle breeds and enhance forestry production. The station began to decline during the May Regime that came to power in 1969, and by 1994 it had ceased operations entirely. Its infrastructure subsequently suffered extensive destruction and neglect.
In later years, companies used the site for groundnut production and for manufacturing animal feed from the by-products of the region’s edible oil industry.
In 2019, the Animal Resources Research Authority at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries signed an agreement with Salih Abdelrahman Yacoub Investment Company to rehabilitate the station. The outbreak of war, however, halted implementation.
Today, the station’s lands and surrounding areas are cultivated with groundnuts, sorghum, sesame, and millet. The area is commonly referred to as the “Ghazala Jawazat Agricultural Project.”
Absence of Financing and Pervasive Insecurity
With the disappearance of the institutions that financed farmers before the war, most notably the Sudanese Agricultural Bank and microfinance providers, farmers continue to struggle to secure essential inputs such as seeds, fertilizers, and fuel, whose costs have surged following the disruption of supply chains.
Before the outbreak of conflict, banks operating in the state, led by the Sudanese Agricultural Bank and the Savings and Social Development Bank, financed large expanses of farmland across East Darfur. Their activities, however, came to a halt after the war erupted.
The conflict has also brought an end to agricultural extension services that once targeted individual farmers, groups, and cooperatives, helping to improve productivity, increase yields, and strengthen food self-sufficiency.
Likewise, companies that had invested in agriculture, contributing capital, generating economic returns, expanding cultivated areas, and creating employment opportunities in agricultural projects, have largely disappeared from the sector.
The prevailing security vacuum has emptied farming villages of their producers, forcing many farmers to abandon large open-field projects and retreat to cultivating very small plots near their homes or along mountain slopes in order to secure a minimum supply of food for their families.
As waves of displacement continue to drain the agricultural workforce, vast tracts of fertile land have been left fallow. This has severely diminished prospects for producing both cash crops, such as sesame and groundnuts, and staple food crops, including sorghum and millet.
In Shi’ariya locality in East Darfur, farmers face acute shortages of agricultural inputs alongside growing difficulties in accessing markets due to insecurity and deteriorating road conditions.
Farmer Tarig Adam Tahmad told Atar that the war has led to a marked decline in agricultural production and the loss of numerous crops as displacement, fear of attacks, and widespread looting disrupted farming activities.
According to Tahmad, some farmers in the locality managed to cultivate their fields during the previous season only “through extraordinary hardship.” Yet many now find themselves unable to market last year’s harvest.
Crop prices also remain low relative to the high costs of production, leaving farmers unable to generate sufficient income to finance the current season.
Most of those who have remained in their villages and continue to farm, he said, have reduced cultivation to plots ranging between one and two mukhammassat at best, barely enough to meet household consumption needs.
North Darfur
Any displacement or military activity means, first and foremost, the suspension of agricultural activity.
Abu Bakr Hamid Brima Khalil, farmer, North Darfur
In As-Sereif locality in North Darfur State, farmer Abu Bakr Hamid Brima Khalil told Atar that his colleagues have begun clearing their lands in preparation for cultivation by burning crop residues and cutting back small trees.
Khalil explained that these tasks are being carried out entirely through self-help efforts, with no external assistance available.
Farmers are also struggling to obtain seeds, particularly as agriculture in the locality remains largely traditional and only minimally mechanized.
While the limited use of machinery affects productivity, Khalil stressed that the most immediate challenge is the scarcity of seeds. He also revealed that government support, which farmers previously relied upon, has ceased since the outbreak of war.
Khalil noted that most farmers in North Darfur had depended on financing from the Sudanese Agricultural Bank, whose operations in the state stopped after the conflict began on April 15, 2023. He added that North Darfur has been among the states hardest hit by displacement as a result of continuing military operations
“Any displacement or military activity,” he said, “means, first and foremost, the suspension of agricultural activity.”
According to official reports, North Darfur succeeded in cultivating 4.2 million feddans during the 2024 agricultural season and had planned to cultivate 5.375 million feddans in 2025 before the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) established near-complete control over the state following their consolidation of power in Al-Fashir in October last year.
No statements regarding the current agricultural season have been issued by the Ministry of Agriculture appointed by the Tasis administration in the state.
An agricultural expert based in Tawila locality, who requested anonymity when speaking to Atar, estimated that farmers in North Darfur will be able to cultivate no more than 500,000 feddans this season under the most optimistic scenario.
The expert attributed the decline to the absence of security, the displacement of more than 75 per cent of the state’s farmers, and the lack of financing even for those who remain on their land. As a result, farmers have been forced to reduce cultivated acreage and focus exclusively on small plots intended for household subsistence.
“Most farmers in Darfur have effectively been pushed out of production by the war,” the expert said.
He noted that insecurity and repeated displacement have reached such levels that many farmers can no longer access their land even to clear it in preparation for planting. Under such circumstances, he argued, discussing agricultural finance has become “a luxury,” since many farmers cannot safely reach their fields in the first place.
The expert predicts that food grain shortages in areas controlled by the Tasis alliance could exceed 80 per cent as a consequence of the collapse of agricultural activity.
He further argued that the continuation of the war and the RSF’ control over large areas of Darfur and Kordofan have prevented farmers from travelling to their fields. Stories of looting, including the theft of basic farming tools such as hoes, hand cultivators, and axes, alongside the risks of detention and arrest, have further discouraged movement.
Seasonal rains, meanwhile, have created additional barriers for farmers in western Sudan living under Tasis control.
“Even if a reasonable level of financing were available,” he said, “the fundamental challenge would still be security. Security is the cornerstone of every agricultural operation, which requires constant supervision and care. Without it, the entire season can be lost.”
South Darfur
In South Darfur State, the Minister of Agriculture and Forestry under the Tasis administration, Suleiman Abdel Jabbar, said that the ministry had begun early preparations aimed at ensuring the success of the 2026 agricultural season.
The announcement came during an expanded meeting held at the ministry’s office in Nyala, attended by leaders of the Farmers’ Union and representatives of agricultural companies operating in the state.
In press statements, the minister said the meeting reviewed in detail the ministry’s preparations for the coming season, particularly the provision of essential agricultural inputs, including improved seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, and agricultural machinery, in addition to fuel, one of the most pressing challenges currently facing farmers.
In Nyala, however, farmer and agricultural producer Nour Al-Sadiq Al-Awad, who owns a farm specializing in onions and vegetables, voices a different reality on the ground. She complains of the sharp rise in fuel and seed prices, while good-quality seeds have become increasingly scarce. As a result, farmers have been forced to rely on expired seeds they had stored from previous periods.
There are currently no farmers practicing agricultural activity in the state.
Nour Al-Sadiq Al-Awad, farmer and agricultural producer, South Darfur.
The same applies to pesticides, many of which are now being used despite having lost their effectiveness, as new supplies are largely unavailable.
Nour said that some companies have entered the agricultural inputs market directly, but their operations remain confined to urban areas. They are unable to deliver products to rural communities where farms are located due to deteriorating security conditions and the risk of losing both goods and transportation.
She noted that the first year after the outbreak of war witnessed a degree of agricultural success, but that the following two years “destroyed everything.”
Farmers in Nyala, she explained, have largely abandoned cultivation because it is no longer economically viable.
“At our farm, we planted onions during the first year of the war, and the crop succeeded,” she said. “But in the two following years, we were unable to cultivate.”
She added that rising production costs mean that any crop planted can barely cover even a small portion of those expenses, if it reaches harvest at all. These conditions, she said, have also created space for the spread of “counterfeit” seeds that fail to produce crops and leave farmers facing heavy losses.
Nour argues that a successful agricultural season cannot be discussed while the war continues. “Agriculture requires stability and security,” she recounted. “Today, everyone is displaced, farmers included, and there is no one left to cultivate the land.”
Nour, who is a leading member of the Sudanese Communist Party, questions the feasibility of official preparations for the season.
“Even if we accept the seriousness of the agriculture minister’s statements about readiness for the agricultural season, and even if the ministry fulfils its commitments, who will actually do the farming? There are currently no farmers practicing agricultural activity in the state,” she said.
West Darfur
Only 15 per cent of farmers in the state may be able to cultivate their land this year.
Jamal Badawi, deputy head of the Supreme Committee for Opening Pastoral Routes and Seasonal Migration Corridors, West Darfur
In West Darfur State, Jamal Badawi, the deputy head of the Supreme Committee for Opening Pastoral Routes and Seasonal Migration Corridors and Ensuring the Success of the Agricultural Season, established by the civil administration affiliated with the Tasis government, acknowledged to Atar that the ongoing war has severely affected the agricultural sector in his state.
Badawi revealed that only 15 per cent of farmers in the state may be able to cultivate their land this year, while the area expected to be planted will represent less than 20 per cent of West Darfur’s total agricultural land.
He warned that the continuation of the war poses a fundamental threat to farmers’ livelihoods and is likely to contribute to food shortages due to insufficient agricultural production. He also cautioned that food gaps are expected this year as agricultural activity has halted across large parts of the state.
West Darfur, once regarded as the breadbasket of the Darfur region before the war, is now suffering severely from continued displacement, insecurity, and soaring prices of agricultural inputs.
The deputy head of the agricultural season committee revealed shortages in quality seeds, agricultural machinery, and pesticides. He also pointed to the state government’s inability to provide comprehensive security coverage, attributing this to the vast geographical size of the state.
Badawi said the committee has begun implementing measures aimed at protecting the coming agricultural season, including reopening pastoral and agricultural routes, restoring access roads to water sources, and preventing encroachment through agricultural expansion or overgrazing.
The committee is also working to enforce agreed dates for at-talg, the traditional practice whereby pastoralists release livestock onto harvested fields after the completion of cultivation seasons as part of established arrangements between farmers and herders.
The early practice of at-talq, allowing livestock to enter cultivated fields before harvest, has, however, historically been a major source of tension and conflict between farming and pastoral communities.
Badawi added that committees have been formed across various localities of the state to protect and support the agricultural season, alongside the creation of an armed rapid-intervention force tasked with protecting crops from early livestock intrusion.
