SUCCESSFUL COLLECTIVE SCHEME IN THE GEZIRA

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27367, 4 June 1954, Page 10

SUCCESSFUL COLLECTIVE SCHEME IN THE GEZIRA

U DAN’S TENANT FARMERS

[By a Special Corresp Recent signs of the birth of a nation in the Sudan have attracted interest m its political future from many people all over the world. Cotton buyers and spinners in Europe are among them because the Gezira irrigated cotton scheme just south of Khartoum produces some of the finest long-staple cotton in the world. The present Sudan Government has made clear its determination to maintain the efficiency of production ana the social stability of the country s main revenue-producing scheme, it has shown much patience in settling internal differences in the tenants representative organisation, and has followed it by supporting the Sudan Gezira Board’s sharp reminder to all concerned to get on with the job of cotton production in the interests of the whole country. There is no reason to think that tpis or any future Sudan government will underestimate the Gezira’s importance •or show any less determination. The scheme is a national asset and all political parties are agreed that it must be maintained at the highest state of efficiency. If things go wrong in this area any Sudan government must expect searching criticism from tqe Opposition. Peaceful Revolution The peaceful social revolution which has taken place in the Gezira over the last 29 years has greatly altered the Gezira’s way of life and its standard of living. An influential and prosperous tenant middle class is emerging, which requires the increasing attentions of the board and of the Government. In pre-scheme days the semi-pastoral population grew millet on earthbunded cultivations and secured good crops for three years irf every five from a four months’ annual rainfall of between 10 and 25 inches. In the winter the men moved south with cattle and sheep to better grazing, grounds. Goats browsed on sparse thorn-bush round the villages. Water for man and beast was hauled night and day from 120-foot hand-dug wells. Today all is changed. In place of Nature’s paltry few inches, seven feet of water is poured upon the ground over nine months of the year; 3500 miles of canals provide free and effortless water for animals; a guaranteed grain-crop is grown on 125,000 feddans (a feddan is just over an acre), and forage and vegetables on a further 50,000. Cotton is the most important product, with 235.000 feddans smothered in white gold from January to April. Over 540,000 feddans lie fallow, nursing their strength for future years. High Cash Income Twenty-nine thousand tenant farmers, each supporting from seven to 10 persons or more, live off the land and enjoy cash income as high as any peasant farmer in the world. They and the Government, which maintains all the irrigation works and rents the land, each receive 40 per cent, of the profits. In the worst year of the world slump the 40 per cent, share of 19,602 tenants from the 1930-31 crop was £E157,575; in the record crop season of 1950-51 the share of 24,794 tenants amounted to £E18,100,000. In the current year 29,216 tenants are receiving £E5,142,0,00 from the proceeds of the 1952-83 crop. Tea and coffee in coloured china have replaced sweetened water in a sundried calabash, and the bus and the taxi have ousted the horse and the camel for personal transport. The tenant employs much labour and subscribes large amounts for the building of schools, mosques, and village halls. A large-scale irrigated scheme of this nature with fixed rotations and crops provides little opportunity for personal initiative and enterprise. It demands a high standard of agricultural discipline and is subject to a strong centralised control. The tenant is directed to carry out all agricultural operations to a relentless time-table; the grading, ginning, transport, and marketing of the main crop are carried out for him by a large business organisation. But other influences compel the tenant.to take a more intelligent interest in the world around him. Constitutional change, the development of local government, expanded press and radio services, and an ever-widening circle of educated sons and relatives do not leave him untouched. He begins to ask why it is that cotton prices are So variable, why events outside the Sudan affect his income so closely, and what lies behind all this talk about synthetic fibres.

undent of "The Timet”) In 1950, when the Sudan Gezira Board took over this successful enterprise from the concessionaire coml ’ panies arrangements were made under the Gezira Scheme Ordinance for the conduct of social development activities to meet the widening needs of the Gezira people, to enlarge their in. terests, to foster community self-help and to create a well-informed public opinion. A cumulative social develop, ment fund is fed each year with a tenth part of the board’s 20 per cent share of the profits, the annual intake being limited to a maximum of £E250,000 and a minimum of £E60.000 The annual disbursement of funds ia subject in the first instance to the advice of the Gezira Local Committee. It has 26 members and the majority are Sudanese; there are 10 tenant representatives, six from local government authorities, five from government ministries operating services in the scheme area, and members for other interests. Its recommendations go to the Social Development Committee of the board, composed of three of its seven directors; the chairman is a Sudanese full-time director, and this committee’s recommendations go to the board for final approval. The projects are grouped generally under the headings: education, health, agriculture, and research and experiment. The Four Projects In 1953-54 £E59,414 was allocated to education projects, £E148,194 to health, ’ £E23.949 to agriculture, and £E49,954 was voted for research and experiment The year’s allotment from the board’s profits and the unspent balances of. previous years covered the total. Housing and transport assistance is given to government-staffed adult education, women’s social welfare, and health visiting teams, and grants are made for the building of schools, for recreation, Sudan handicrafts, the pro- ■ duction of pamphlets and posters, for educational tours abroad by tenants, and for the production of a fortnightly Arabic social and agricultural newspaper. The bulk of the provision for health is for a wide-scale programme for the improvement of village water supplies by deep bores and for anti-malarial residual spraying of every building in the area twice a year. Under agriculture, funds are made available for the running of two training farms for tenants’ sons, each with 40 boarders, for horticultural services and demonstration gardens, and for the development of timber plantations for fuel and building. .The research and experiment allocation provides for continuous social surveys in villages, for investigation by means of experiment into the problems of low-cost building, for a village farming experiment to widen the basis of farming, and for animal husbandry. The benefits of the short-term prac- | tical projects are apparent and have popular support. But it is the longterm projects, producing no quick re- . suits and less well understood, which are of greater importance to the Gezira scheme. The full effects of informal adult education, of women's social welfare work, of the pamphlets and posters, and the newspaper, "El Gezira,” of the village farming experiment and of the training farms may not be seen for a generation. Social Questions There are many vital problems arising out of social research inquiries which must receive the attention of the board and of the Government. Out of more than 90,000 estimated adult males only 29,000 can be placed directly on the land. Do they form a rich kulak class who excite the envy of the less fortunate? Or is the wealth they obtain from the soil dispersed fairly by social inter-relations and services throughout the whole population? Is there increasing pressure on the land and can it be relieved? Are there undefined and muted grievances at work under the popular acceptance of an economically successful, wellorganised, and stable agricultural scheme? In this kind of enterprise four elements are essential to its success: adequate natural resources; the provision' of sufficient capital; the application of business brains and experience; and. a contented human population. Of these the fourth is by far the most important, and unless it is given adequate attention the whole enterprise may founder.’ It is deeply to be hoped that; the present and future Sudan Governments will give to it the attention deserved.