For decades, women farmers in Darfur have struggled to maintain their livelihoods and secure a measure of food security and economic stability for their families and communities, despite the successive wars and conflicts that have ravaged their region.
With the outbreak of the April 15 war, however, the fragile thread of financial support that the Agricultural Bank had extended to farmers—women and men alike—was severed. Yet the determination of women farmers did not falter. Instead, they found a new model of agricultural support and cooperation: agricultural emergency rooms.
The agricultural emergency rooms emerged in Darfur in 2023, after young people in Ad-Deain launched an initiative to support a group of widowed women who had lost their husbands to the war. The initiative helped the women cultivate their land by providing seeds and farming tools. The model subsequently spread across the region, with agricultural emergency rooms seeking to secure financing for women farmers by mobilizing support from international organizations and other donors operating in Sudan, including the World Food Programme (WFP) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC).
In this report, members of agricultural emergency rooms and women farmers across Darfur told Atar about their experiences, the challenges they face, the bonds they have forged with one another, and their hopes for a more prosperous tomorrow.
New Planting Seasons
Rasha Yagoub Adam, a member of the al-Sanabil Agricultural Association in Kabkabiya locality, North Darfur, told Atar that women farmers used to plant every year at the onset of the rainy season and harvest their crops as the season came to an end.
The IRC, however, provided them with support to grow winter crops, in an effort to make farming more sustainable and less dependent on seasonal environmental fluctuations. Rasha and her fellow farmers embarked on a new experiment that, she said, is progressing well. For the first time, they are waiting for crops to bear fruit during the dry season.
Kabkabiya is one of North Darfur’s major agricultural production areas. Crops grown there include millet, sorghum, peanuts, okra and various varieties of cowpeas. Farming in Kabkabiya traditionally follows the rainy season, beginning in July and ending in late October.
That pattern has now change, Rasha and her colleagues are farming during the dry season. She said that most people in her area are farmers, both women and men, and that agriculture is the foundation of local livelihoods. For women in particular, she mentioned, there were few alternatives for earning a living.
Rasha currently leads a group of 23 women. She described the group as relatively small because of limited support, adding that other groups—most of them displaced women from Al-Fashir—are ready to begin farming as soon as additional support becomes available. She pointed to the difficulties they face, particularly those associated with farming during the “hot summer”, the period between April and June when temperatures rise and the rains have yet to arrive. Water scarcity during this period requires considerable effort to secure enough water for cultivation.
Rasha and her colleagues have also faced severe fuel shortages, as well as shortages of fertilizers and pesticides. Before the war, and even after it began, agricultural inputs reached them from northern and eastern Sudan via Ad-Dabba and were essential to their farming operations. But the Rapid Support Forces’ (RSF) decision in 2024 to halt trade with areas controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) brought those supplies to a stop.
Markets now receive goods from Chad, the Central African Republic and Libya. Rasha said the seeds arriving from those countries are not guaranteed and are inferior in quality to those previously sourced from within Sudan. Pesticides and fertilizers, she added, are also entering the region without adequate oversight.
At the same time, Rasha told that a relative degree of security has made farming easier. Drone activity and coordinated attacks by armed groups on villages in the locality have ceased.
Returning to farming has given Rasha and her colleagues a means of self-realization and an opportunity to acquire new knowledge. That, she said, is what keeps them committed to farming despite the challenges.
In Al-Sunta locality, South Darfur, Mihad Ibrahim and a group of women have established a women’s association dedicated to growing and producing a variety of vegetables, with the aim of marketing their produce and achieving a measure of economic stability for the women and their families.
Mihad and her colleagues have taken a path similar to that of the women in Al-Sanabil Agricultural Association, they decided to farm during the dry season. “Last season, we began growing vegetables during the dry season and brought water from the village donki – water collection station –” Mihad told Atar. “But we are no longer able to use the donki to the extent we need because the water supply has diminished. The villagers also need water for drinking.”
Mihad said they also need facilities to store water during the dry season. Last season, Mihad and her colleagues had planned to grow potatoes, but delays in donor support forced them to abandon the crop and turn instead to sweet potato. Sweet potato is less constrained by climatic conditions and does not require planting at a specific time, but its economic return is lower than that of potatoes.
“I wish the donors would take planting seasons into consideration,” Mihad said. After that experience, Mihad and her colleagues decided this time to grow vegetables during the rainy season to avoid water shortages. Their need for water tanks, however, remains, she said, because of “subnat” phenomenon—periods when rainfall stops for several days or even weeks—can occur during the rainy season.
Mihad said they had received “tremendous” moral and material support from local communities and some local organizations, including seeds, fertilizers and logistical assistance. They had received no support, however, from either the authorities affiliated with the Ta’sis Government, which controls their locality, or the SAF-aligned state government. “We rely on our own efforts, community support, support from civil society organizations and the agricultural emergency rooms,” she said.
Mihad and her colleagues remain hopeful for peace, she mentioned, but waiting for it will not stop them from farming. “We need tools that can help us with our agricultural work, such as machinery and modern technologies,” Maha recounted. She also complained of soaring fuel prices. Fuel is essential for ploughing the land and operating the donki water, she said. “Fuel is central to the agricultural process, but it is scarce and almost nonexistent. We will overcome this through more work and greater support from our partners.”
Siham: Displaced, Yet Still a Farmer
More than either, I would rather be called Siham, the woman who farms her land.
Siham Adam Jarma, farmer
Three years ago, Siham Adam Jarma was displaced from her village in Kabkabiya locality, North Darfur, to the border town of Um Dafug, near the Central African Republic, in the far south of the region. Siham told Atar that the land she farms does not belong to her. Nevertheless, no one has prevented her from cultivating it since she arrived in Um Dafug three years ago. The landowner, she added, helps her with farming whenever his circumstances allow. “I was displaced as a farmer, and I can see no place for myself in life other than as a farmer,” Siham said.
Although she now lives only a few kilometres from a neighbouring country, she firmly refuses to leave Sudan. “I would rather be called a displaced person than a refugee,” she said. “And more than either, I would rather be called Siham, the woman who farms her land.”
Food prices, Siham said, have become “unbelievable” as a result of the war and the disruption of trade between markets, making local food production the first line of defence against famine. Agricultural associations, she added, foster solidarity and cooperation among women, helping protect communities from the fragmentation that accompanies war.
Sohaiba and Nasra: How Do We Reach Our Farms?
The men left our area for various reasons related to the war, and the women remained. They are the ones farming now.
Sohaiba Ali Ramadan, farmer
Sohaiba Ali Ramadan, a member of the Um Dhul Agricultural Association in Yassin locality, East Darfur, told Atar that people in her area are farmers who never tire of farming, relying entirely on agriculture and livestock for their livelihoods.
Since the outbreak of the war, she said, women have come to make up the majority of those engaged in farming in her area. “The men left our area for various reasons related to the war, and the women remained. They are the ones farming now,” she added. Sohaiba recounted that the first question confronting women farmers is: “How do we get to our farms?”
“We do not have the means to reach our farms,” she said. “And even if we manage to overcome that problem, we face another when it comes to cultivating the fields: securing the means to plough the land. Women farmers in the bildat, small farming plots, do not own tractors, forcing them to rent them from tractor owners at exorbitant prices.”
Sohaiba said women are sometimes compelled to work for the tractor owner on his farm, clearing or preparing the land, in exchange for having their own fields prepared. “That is why most women here prepare their land by hand and rely on manual labour at every stage of farming,” she said. “Fuel prices have risen since last year, while crop prices have fallen because of restrictions on moving produce out of the region to areas where it is consumed. This has compounded the challenges we face, but we will not abandon farming despite all of this.”
Sohaiba also pointed to the high cost of improved seeds and the difficulty women face in obtaining them because they are sold in markets far from the villages. Reaching those markets is itself difficult for women because of the security situation.
Women in her town, Sohaiba mentioned, do not own private agricultural projects. Such projects are owned by men, while women practice traditional farming on limited, designated plots that they are not permitted to expand.
Agricultural associations, however, have begun providing women with money to access farmland through an annual leasing arrangement known as duqundi. Under this system, one person leases agricultural land from another for a single farming season or several seasons in exchange for a fixed payment or a share of the harvest at the time of collection.
Sohaiba also complained about delays in receiving support. “The agricultural emergency rooms provide us with assistance, while the associations in turn receive support from donors,” she said. “But very often, the support arrives after the planting window has passed, because donors do not always take agricultural calendars into account.”
“Support often arrives after the rains have begun because the donor’s grant is delayed. We need assistance at a particular time, but we do not receive it. That is why we do not rely heavily on support coming from outside: it may arrive late and cause us to lose the entire season.” Sohaiba strongly denied that they have received any form of assistance from the authorities of theTa’sis, which controls the area.
In the Khazan Jadid area of Sheiria locality, East Darfur, farmer Nasra Shatout spoke of the hardships faced by women farmers amid the continuing war between the SAF and the RSF, as well as local conflicts in her area.
Nasra said that women have been forced to shoulder responsibilities far greater than the already considerable burdens they carried before, following the involvement of many men in the ongoing conflict. The continuation of the fighting has also deprived women of their sources of income, which they attempt to rebuild during every lull in the conflict.
Nasra added that they face acute shortages of agricultural inputs, alongside rising prices and declining quality. “We suffer from shortages of seeds and financing, deteriorating security conditions and the fear of repeated displacement,” she said. “We also face the spread of agricultural pests because of weak services and agricultural extension, as well as poor roads and the difficulty of transporting crops to markets. There is also the risk of flash floods and heavy rains affecting our villages and farms, as happened last year.”
Despite all these challenges, Nasra and her colleagues in the Khazan Jadid Agricultural Association continue to practice traditional farming to secure food for their families. She pointed to the important role women play in cultivating food-security crops amid limited support and the absence of social protection networks. “We now represent a symbol of resilience and of preserving the lives of families and communities,” she said.
But we farm, and we will continue to farm, because for us, a life fully lived is a life rooted in agriculture.
Samia Abbakar, farmer
In Nierteti locality, Central Darfur, Samia Abbakar and 25 of her colleagues established an agricultural association called the Turba Agricultural Group, initially covering an area of 200 feddans. Samia said she and her colleagues are currently preparing the land for cultivation, identifying the women and men who will benefit from the project, and holding meetings with them and the relevant stakeholders.
Their plan for this season, she said, is to cultivate the targeted area with millet, peanuts, sesame and sunflower. She noted that they face a number of challenges, particularly in the West Jabal Marra area. Chief among these are conflicts between communities and those between pastoralists and farmers.
Incidents of killing and rape, she told Atar, make women hesitant to engage in agricultural activities, particularly because most of the land they cultivate lies far from the villages. People displaced by the war have occupied the areas closer to the villages, turning them into places of refuge and permanent residence. Samia also complained of rising prices for agricultural inputs and machinery, as well as increasing irrigation costs, particularly amid soaring fuel prices. Yet she remains determined, “But we farm, and we will continue to farm, because for us, a life fully lived is a life rooted in agriculture.”
