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China-Africa Trade Information Service
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Sudan is a competitive producer and exporter of gum arabic, peanuts, livestock and sesame seeds. In 2015, Sudan was the second largest exporter of sesame seeds after India, with 296,000 tons of seeds exported. This accounts for about 13% of world exports.
The British government introduced mechanized agriculture to the cracking clays of the Sudanese Gedarif state in 1944-45 to produce sorghum for their Eastern African colonies. Sesame plants require 50 percent less water than cotton and 66 percent less water than sorghum, partly due to an extensive root system, which also makes the plant highly drought-tolerant.
Sesame thrives in well-drained neutral pH soils, but grow well in almost all types of soil and can even improve soil quality. This may be one of the reasons why the producers in the area have shifted to farming the crop. Today, Gedarif is known for the quality of its sesame seeds. Additionally, the state enjoys proximity to Port Sudan for exports. The state has been referred to as the country's breadbasket, producing 62,000 tonnes of sesame seeds in the 2016 -2017 market year alone, the largest output of all Sudanese states. Gedarif is known to use imported labor, mainly from neighboring Ethiopia, especially during the sesame harvest season.
Over 2.5 million rainfed hectares of Sudan's cultivable land is under sesame seed production. Concentrated mainly in the clay plains of east and central Sudan, 53 percent of sesame farming is mechanized. Approximately 77 percent of the area devoted to sesame seed farming in Sudan is in three states: North Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Gedarif.
Erratic weather conditions, lack of infrastructure, and an absence of supportive policy have held back producers despite expansive farming and relatively easy access to external markets.
In the 2015-2016 market year, 5,975 acres of sesame seeds were planted with 40 percent of the area under mechanized, rainfed cultivation. Higher yields were consistently reported by the mechanized sector. Even with one of the largest single irrigation schemes in the world, arable land equipped for irrigation has declined from 14.6 percent in 1992 to just 9.6 percent in 2016. This leaves the majority of producers susceptible to increasingly erratic weather conditions.
Pests are a major issue plaguing Sudan's sesame seed production. The lygaeid bug, or sesame seed bug—found prominently in the clay soils of central Sudan—depletes the seed's oil content thus reducing overall quality and quantity. Of the seeds that make it to harvest, losses may occur from poor threshing and storage.
Most of the sesame cultivated area is rainfed. Smallholder farms account for the majority of growers, but they are separated from each other and markets by inadequate infrastructure. Oilseeds are transported from crop markets to Port Sudan via road. Taxes and fees, including port levies from 30 to 80 percent of total fees, are collected between the farmgate and the world market. Despite these costs, sesame seeds continue to be competitive. On average, 44 percent of sesame seeds produced in Sudan are exported. The main markets for Sudanese sesame seeds are Egypt, the Middle East, and Asia.