Water, land and Arab investments in Sudan

This chapter seeks to describe the current trends of agricultural investments in Sudan. Given the sub-desert or desert climate, irrigated agriculture is at the heart of the discussion. Grafted onto elements of continuity, some innovations, though not so extensive, are precursors of a potentially radical transformation of the economic geography of the area. With Sudan’s great abundance of water for an ever-thirsty Arab world, the country continues to be a powerful attractor. Thus, a ‘new stage of openness’ of the Sudanese economy, promoted by the government, has allowed for the creation of productive enclaves that are completely in the hands of investors: circular green oases arise in the margins of the desert. These new agricultural perimeters are characterised by their minimal infrastructural intervention. The high mechanisation of the production cycle has drastically reduced the number of workers required. In the last section, the chapter describes the first signs of deeper processes capable of drastically modifying the face of the country’s core agricultural area. Perhaps these ‘experiments’ are the starting point of what could be called the real ‘great game’ on Sudanese land: the dismantling, reconversion and reassembling in a neoliberal and hyper-technological key of the mega-irrigation projects which date back to colonial and postcolonial times.