Capitalist Agriculture in the Sudan's Dura Prairies

bibliographic database
Line

Periodical article

Title:	Capitalist Agriculture in the Sudan's Dura Prairies
Author:	Shepherd, Andrew W.
Year:	1983
Periodical:	Development and Change
Volume:	14
Issue:	2
Period:	April
Pages:	297-320
Language:	English
Geographic term:	Sudan
Subjects:	large farms millet Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment Development and Technology Economics and Trade
External link:	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-7660.1983.tb00155.x
Abstract:	The development of mechanized dura (sorghum) production, in the Sudan Is akin in scale to the development of prairie farming in North America and colonial settler farming in East and Southern Africa. In sub-Saharan black Africa the Sudan offers the most dramatic and extensive example of national capitalist expansion into agriculture. It is a common thesis of development theorists and experts that what African (and indeed Third World) agriculture needs is an injection of capitalist farming methods and social relations. Here is a case where this policy has been more extensively followed than elsewhere in Africa as far as the penetration of agriculture by nationalist capitalists is concerned; it is interesting to evaluate the theory by this experience. As will be seen, the theory is severely wanting. The paper analyzes the origins and development of large-scale mechanized farming in the Sudan, and its contribution to the current crisis in Sudanese politics and economic position. Maps, notes, ref., tab.