Sudan - Gezira study mission (Vol. 11 of 15) : Annex V : the farmer ' s income

UNN39 Vol. 11 GE Z I R A STUDY MISS IO N ANNEX V THE FARPER'S INCOME , - ,-. -~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~, i,. .., t F;f: ^ ;~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  AkMEX V THE FARMER'S INCOTE TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE 1. Estimating Farmers' Income ............ 1 2. Incomes from Individual Crops .......... 2 a. Income from cotton ................ 2 b. Income from other crops ............ 4 c. Profitability of various crops * 6 3. Aggregate Farmers' Income .......... 7 4. Incomes for Typical Farm Units ......... 8 5. Concluding Remarks ..................... 10 TABLES: 1. Gezira 1964/65: Cotton Crop, Proceeds, Costs and Income per feddan ........ 11 2. Gezira 1964/65: Farmers' Income from non-cotton crops and livestock .... 13 3. Gezira 1964/65: Aggregate Gross Output, at farm prices, and Farmers' net income ........... ..... 14 4. Gezira 196L/65: Farmers' Income from all crops and livestock for typical Managil and Gezira land units 15  ANNEX V THE FARMER'S INCOME The amount and composition of the farmer's income from the Scheme have a major influence on the extent to which he contributes to the production of the various crops and hence on the success of the Scheme. If farmers do not fully co-operate, or if their efforts are misdirected, only part of the possible benefits will be realized. Recent experience appears to illustrate the point. Farmers in the Gezira have increasingly complained that the income received from their work in the Scheme has not been adequate. In these circumstances it is likely that farmaers' co-operation and efforts, and hence the Scheme's total income, have tended to be rather less than they might have been in the absence of such compLaints,whether these were justified or not. 1. Estimating Farmers' Income Reliable data on individual farmers' incomes in the Gezira do not exist. The mission, therefore, had to make its own estimates They are set forth in Tables 1 to h attached to this Annex, ----- relate to 196L/65, the most recent year for which actual data are available, and a year of about average crop yields: both yield and sales prices of the 196L/65 cotton crop were closely similar to tha averages for the five-year period 1960/61-1964/65. The estimates are based as far as possible on the actual accounts and other records of the S.G.B.; for the elements not thus covered, notably cost of production incurred at the farm level, the mission relied heavily on estimates prepared by the Working Party. The source materials cited are essentially in terms of broad averages, either Scheme-wide or for the Gezira Main and Managil areas separately. Accordingly, the estimates of farmers' incomes presented here provide no more than rough indications of average positions from which the individual farmers' incomes are certain to have differed over a wide range. The estimates are developed in terms of the Scheme's main crops, i.e. cotton, groundnuts, wheat and dura, with lump sum estimates being added for gardens and livestock production; lubia, much of which is given to pickers as part of their remuneration is directly set off against cotton production and hence not separately accounted for. For each of the main crops referred to, yield, sales and cost of production are calculated on a per feddan basis and incomes derived  - 2 - ANNEX V accordingly (Table 1 for cotton and Table 2 for other crops). Individual crop results per feddan are first translated into Scheme- wide aggregates of (a) gross output at farm prices and (b) farmers' net incomes, to which there is then added the extra income due to the freezing of the tenants' debts (Table 3). Subsequently, individual crop results per feddan are combined on the basis of the areas cropped in typical land holdings, namely, an average 15-feddan land unit in Managil, and average 20-feddan and 40-feddan land units in the Gezira Main respectively, with income deriving from frozen debts being added on a proportionate basis (Table 4). An important assumption made throughout the calculations is the 85 percent of work done at the farm level was performed by hired labor. Further details on each of the component estimates and on other assumptions made are given in the following paragraphs. 2. Incomes from Individual Crops A basic distinctioii must be made between cotton, the net proceeds of which are shared by the farmers and the Government, and other crops and livestock production whose proceeds accrue entirely to the farmers. Other crops include groundnuts, wheat and dura, vegetab'es and fruits from gardens. Of these crops, cotton and dura are grown by every farmer in the Scheme. Groundnuts and wheat are alternative crops, i.e. individual rotations include either the one or the other, with wheat being prevalent in the Gezira Main and groundnuts in the Ilanagil area. Gardens and livestock production are not common and only a fraction o. the Scheme's farmers are engaged in these activities. a. Income from cotton. Farmers' income from cotton in 1964/65 has been estimated as is shown in some detail in Table 1. The figures are on a per feddan basis and represent averages for the Scheme as a whole. They are obtained by dividing aggregate figures on output, sales and costs of the Scheme's 1964/65 crop by the number of Leddans under cotton in that year, except for production cost at the farm level which is estimated on the basis of typical cost per feddan, bearing in mind the actual yield in 1964/65 of 3.554 k.p.f. The point of departure is the sales value of lint and cottonseed realized by the S.G.B. Per feddan in 1964/65 this amounted to approximately ES 42.45 for lint and ES 7.82 for the component seed, or together