Socio-Economic Effects Of Rehablitated Desertified Agricultural Tenancies Of North Western Parts Of The Gezira Scheme

This study aimed at evaluating the impacts of removal of sand and growing of Seheimab shelterbelt on irrigation canals of northwestern parts of the Gezira Scheme. The study targeted Abu Guta and Begigea blocks, eighty tenancies were randomly selected out of five villages adjacent to northwestern parts of the Gezira Scheme. Those tenancies were divided into two groups: the first one whose tenancies were previously affected by desertification then rehabilitated and the other group was for those tenancies that were not rehabilitated. The evaluation was relevant to level of agricultural productivity as they live in the same geographical area. Descriptive statistic indicated that most of the tenancies shared the same social characteristics. It also indicated that the tenancies on rehabilitated land had higher annual income, which reflected their stability of crops cultivated areas. The effort for establishment of shelterbelts led to protection of some canals and restored some irrigation area from sand encroachment for the rehabilitated tenancies. For non-rehabilitated tenancies, productivity was directly affected by desertification. Tenancies of rehabilitated fields owned more animals than the tenancies of nonrehabilitated fields because of their ability to keep animals and sell them when market price was high. However the non-rehabilitated tenancies were compelled to sell their animals at lower prices to satisfy urgent consumption need to compensate for their low income from other sources. When comparing rehabilitated and non affected tenancies in the block of Abu Guta using the official records for cotton, to confident the stability of crops cultivated areas found that the average yield for rehabilitated tenancies was less than the yield obtained by those in non affected areas. This was attributed to the decline in the quality of the soil being affected by sand after rehabilitation. The study concluded that restoring of the irrigation capacity, soil quality and establishing shelterbelts (to some extent) helped in increasing income of the tenancies in desert prone areas in Gezira Scheme