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Livestock integration in the irrigated agricultural system in Sudan.

Towards the end of the 1990’s a significant decline in the areas sown to various crops and a sharp drop in productivity have been witnessed in Sudan's irrigated agriculture. At the same time feed shortages formed a main constraint on livestock production in the country. Under such a situation integration of fodder production activities within the existing crop rotations in irrigated agriculture seems plausible. Based on an optimization economic model, namely linear programming, this paper aims at investigating such prospects. The objective function in the basic model was to maximize farm returns. The analysis was based on primary data collected in the irrigated Gezira Scheme, generated through a comprehensive field survey in addition to supportive secondary data. The results showed the feasibility of introducing the fodder legume Dolichos lablab in the rotation for various reasons, such as no fertilizer needs and low demands for water and labour. A number of scenarios analyses of fodder-introducing were conducted around the results of the basic model run. All scenarios demonstrated tangible increases in farm returns, indicating that fodder cultivation would be profitable. Farmers’ income would be enhanced, either directly through fodder returns or indirectly by raising livestock products. Furthermore, fodder introduction would be conducive to reducing irrigation water requirements. Under the present and suggested changes in resource availability tomato, sorghum and cotton production would yield superior profitability to that of wheat, groundnut and onions. With the optimal production plan returns were higher than in the present situation by about 24%, while water requirement was 32% less.