ABSTRACT
In Darfur, the social and economic life of sedentary farmers and pastoralists are inseparable in a network of social and economic relations. In their north-south migrations, pastoralists leave their milking cows with cultivators during the rainy season. This helps to reduce the farmers’ expenditure on grain and provide cash from the sale of milk and butter oil.239 In return the pastoralist family receives grain after harvest. In such a traditional economy, with rudimentary fi nancial markets and fi nancial literacy, investment opportunities are exiguous, as such, the main investment of farmers is in cattle, and wealth accumulation and prestige is measured in terms of the number of cattle. Thus, one implication of this social organization is that some farmers may eventually turn into nomadic herders.
