Jazirah project
The Jazira project (also Gezira project , English Gezira Scheme ) is a project of the Sudanese government to increase agricultural production in the area of the Jazira plain south of Khartoum . It is one of the world's largest irrigation projects .
history
A British group began the project in 1911 as a research project for the cultivation of cotton on an area of around one square kilometer (250 feddan ) near Wad Madani in what was then the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan . The necessary water was first taken from the Blue Nile by pumps .
The project met expectations and so it was decided in 1914 to expand the project area. To this end, the Sannar Dam and a canal system were to be built to direct the water of the Blue Nile to the fields in a natural gradient. The First World War initially interrupted the construction of the dam, but the area used for irrigation rose to around 92 km² (22,000 Feddan ) by 1924 . After the dam was completed in 1925, it increased continuously and reached around 4,200 km² (1,000,000 Feddan) by the time Sudan became independent on January 1, 1956. The al-Managil expansion, which was created from 1958 to 1962, and the construction of the Roseires Dam , completed in 1966, increased the area again to a total of around 8,820 km² (2,100,000 Feddan). This means that the Jazira project has the largest share of irrigation agriculture in Sudan with around 50 percent . For a long time it contributed 35% to Sudan's gross domestic product .
description
The approximately 8,820 km² of the project fill most of the Gezira plain, which is uniformly sloping slightly downriver to the north and can therefore be completely irrigated by the natural gradient. The loamy and therefore easily water-retaining soils prevent the water from seeping away, even if they are not ideal from an agricultural point of view. The water of the Blue Nile is ideal for irrigation, even after 65 years there have been no salinization problems, apart from a few areas on the edge near Khartoum.
The irrigation project is supplied from the Sannar Dam by two parallel main canals with a capacity of 354 m³ / s, to which a network of 2,300 km of side canals and around 1,500 smaller canals with a total of 8,000 km connect. The canals must be continuously cleared of aquatic plants and sediments, for which a larger machine park is used.
The project is managed by the Ministry of Irrigation and the Sudan Gezira Board , which employ more than 7,000 people (as of 2000), but a large number of them are auxiliary staff to operate the individual weirs.
The area is leased to 120,000 farmers in units of an average of 8 hectares; there is no private ownership of the fields. The farmers are obliged to follow the cultivation regulations of the administration, they have little influence on the cultivation. It is estimated that more than half of the tenants are no longer active in agriculture, but have outsourced this work to sub-tenants or migrant workers.
Cultivation
Cotton , Durra , peanuts , vegetables , corn , fruit and wheat are mainly produced for export and for our own consumption . In 1992/1993, the following areas were cultivated for the individual products:
| product | Area in Feddan |
|---|---|
| Durra | 550,000 |
| wheat | 530,000 |
| peanuts | 188,000 |
| cotton | 152,000 |
| vegetables | 50,000 |
| Corn | 50,000 |
To maintain soil fertility, the following crop rotations are used in cultivation:
- Cotton, wheat
- Wheat, durra or peanuts, vegetables
- Durra or peanuts, vegetables, feed
- Feed, fallow land
- Fallow cotton
In the mid-1980s, livestock farming began to be integrated into the project, for example keeping cows for milk production and poultry.
The project also includes its own railway, the Jazirah Railway , which is responsible for transporting resources to and from the fields. The project also assumes responsibility for further processing and marketing through its own warehouses, 13 ginning plants for the cotton and a dairy cooperative in Barakat near Wad Madani .
literature
- Hervé Plusquellec: The Gezira Irrigation Scheme in Sudan. Objectives, Design, and Performance. World Bank Technical Paper Number 120, 1990 (PDF file; 3.87 MB)
- Sudan - Options for the Sustainable Development of the Gezira Scheme . World Bank Report No. 20398-SU, October 27, 2000 (PDF file; 11.68 MB)
Remarks
- ↑ The area of the Gezira project is thus somewhat larger than the area of the Bavarian district of Lower Franconia .
