The Sudanese government has announced it will cultivate 600,000 acres of wheat as it aims to cut importations of the crop, which have been setting the country back US$900mn annually
Sudan currently imports more than two million tonnes of wheat annually and the recent wheat plantation project set-up by the government will be expected to begin in the winter season, stated Salah Hassan, deputy director of Sudan’s agricultural bank.
The finance minister Ali Mahmoud Abdel-Rasool added that any hold-up in producing wheat locally would mean the government would resort to importing at a higher cost due to international prices increasing.
"We have to reduce imports through domestic production of wheat," Abdel-Rasool said.
Sudan's minister of agriculture, Abdel Halim Al-Mutafi, who was testifying before the Sudanese parliament, said that agricultural finance in the country was not readily available.
Al-Mutafi referred back to funds that were distributed last year, saying that they did not exceed US$3.9bn, which is only two per cent of the total loans issued by the banks nationwide.
