ABSTRACT
This chapter examines conditions of food production on Sudan's irrigated schemes through a case study of the village of Wad al Abbas on the Blue Nile Schemes. Scheme management limits farmers' food production capacities at the household level by controlling credit, technical services, and extension, and by restricting the labor and land farmers may allocate to food crops. The chapter provides an overview of the organization of irrigated schemes in Sudan and focuses on scheme policies regarding food crops. It explores the gap in research on food production on the irrigated schemes. Sudanese irrigation schemes vary, but all are patterned after the oldest and largest, the Gezira, which began operating in 1925, after some experimentation with smaller irrigation projects, as a partnership of British government and private interests. The neglect of food crops was "a hallmark of colonial agricultural policy" throughout Africa.
