Characterization of Urban Agricultural Activities in Khartoum State, Sudan

Urban Farm DB summary

With rapid urbanization in Khartoum increasing the need to produce more food for the growing urban population, while food production in and around the city has received limited attention from scientists and policymakers, this study analyzed the socio-economic conditions and production practices of urban gardeners through a baseline survey conducted from March to June 2007. Forty households with gardens were purposively selected, and heads of household were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire, with descriptive statistics and a two-step cluster analysis used to classify households into homogeneous groups. Urban agriculture was found to be the exclusive domain of men. All 40 surveyed households engaged in commercial vegetable gardening, 33% also cultivated fodder crops, and 5% kept goats and sheep. Seventy-eight percent of gardeners were under 55 years old, and 80% were not native to Khartoum. Few were landowners; 90% operated under a tenant-sharecropping system. Vegetable growing was the main source of income for 83% of gardeners, and short-cycle leafy vegetables such as Jew's mallow, purslane and rocket were the dominant crops. Irrigation came mainly from the River Nile (60%) and wells (37.5%), and almost all gardeners applied pesticides and mineral fertilizers. Ninety-five percent of gardens were cultivated continuously year-round without a fallow period. Households were classified into three groups: mixed vegetable-fodder gardens (10%), mixed vegetable-subsistence livestock gardens (42.5%), and pure vegetable gardens (30%).