Agricultural efficiency gains and trade liberalization in Sudan

Traditional agriculture in Sudan occupies 60% of the cultivated land and employs 65% of the population engaged in agricultural production, but yields are low and productivity is threatened by drought and civil conflicts. Traditional agriculture has therefore contributed an average of only 16% to the total agricultural GDP in the last decade. This paper examines the implications of improving the efficiency of traditional agriculture in Sudan and assesses efficiency gains brought about by trade liberalization. Efficiency improvement experiments are implemented by augmenting the efficiency parameters of labor, capital and land in a computable general equilibrium (CGE) framework. The CGE model uses the most recent Sudanese social accounting matrix (SAM) that comprises 10 agricultural sectors. The results show that improving the agricultural efficiency improves the GDP, welfare, trade balance, output and competitiveness of agricultural exports. Moreover, the resilience of traditional agriculture in Sudan improves with liberalization