The Gezira Scheme
The Gezira agricultural scheme is located in central Sudan, in the clay plain extending between the Blue Nile and the White Nile south of Khartoum, and its administration is headquartered in the town of Barakat near Wad Medani, according to the Gezira Scheme Act of 2005.
Its story began in 1911 with an experimental farm for cotton cultivation in the Tayba area north of Wad Medani, covering an area of 250 feddans irrigated by pumps. After the success of the experiments, the Sennar Dam on the Blue Nile was completed, and the scheme was officially opened in 1925 with an initial area of 300,000 feddans, to be irrigated by gravity flow through an extensive network of canals.
The storage capacity of the Sennar Dam is about 930 million cubic metres, and from its main canal branches a large network of canals and sub-canals to distribute water to the fields. The scheme was managed in its early years by the Sudan Plantations Company, then the Sudan Gezira Board took over its management in 1950. Its area expanded gradually until it approached one million feddans, then the Managil Extension was added between 1958 and 1962, bringing the total area to about 2.2 million feddans, equivalent to approximately 880,000 hectares, making it one of the largest irrigation schemes in the world under a single management.
Historically, the scheme was based on the cultivation of long-staple cotton to supply British factories with their need for raw material, and it was a mainstay of Sudan's economy after independence, then its crops diversified to include wheat, groundnuts, sorghum and vegetables within organised agricultural rotations. The scheme operates under a system of agricultural holdings known as hawashas, which farmers cultivate in an institutional partnership with the administration, and the 2005 Act defines it as a multi-activity economic and social entity.
(Sources: World Bank — Studies of the Gezira Irrigation Scheme; Gezira Scheme Act of 2005; Sudan Archive at Durham University)
— Editorial Team
