AGRI is very important.

Working hard to grow crops in Sudan: A farmer’s tale




by Hamid Ibrahim
in Food Crisis
17.07.2014



KASSALA - Abdurrahman Hamad is a farmer near the Sudanese-Eritrean border. His everyday life is a struggle, but he loves his job.

Hamad lives in the village of Laffa, 30 kilometres south of Kassala. He is in his fifties, slim and tall, and spends most of his waking hours on his farm. He has inherited his occupation and a 10-acre farm from his father but says he would not recommend it to his children.



“Farming is no longer an attractive business because it requires huge efforts and only yields small returns,” says Hamad. “Though exhausting, farming is enjoyable due to a feeling of constant achievement.”





Hamad starts work at 4:00 am by checking on the well’s pump then switching it on to ensure that water is circulated. In the early morning, he works cultivated, weeding, applying pesticides and fertilisers, paving the land and picking up the crops.



Hamad usually takes his first break at sunrise having his breakfast which is usually tea with milk and some bread. He resumes work until midday when he prepares his lunch and then drinks tea or coffee. Afterwards, he takes a nap until 4:00 pm and resumes work until sunset.



He works until late at night if necessary. “However, I sometimes take an obligatory break when it rains,” says Hamad. In that case, the following days are exhausting as he has to put in extra effort to make up for the missed work.



During his breaks, Hamad listens to music on his radio. However, charging the battery was an obstacle for a while, due to a lack of electricity in the farm and neighbouring villages.



farmers however found a solution; some of them have invented a device to charge mobile phones through dry batteries, but this requires removing some parts of the mobile phones. A dry battery lamp is necessary for farmers at night since there are snakes and scorpions.



Despite the many obstacles facing Sudanese farmers, there has been a revival in farming over the past ten years, says Hamad, adding that prices have gone up, especially for onions, tomatoes, okra, green peppers, mallow, portulaca and other crops for which Kassala is famous.



Hamad says that his business would be boosted if there were more roads in his region to link farms with markets and if they would equip villages with electricity. He adds that all his children studied and got university degrees except for one who shares his father’s passion for farming.