Sowing the seeds of famine: the political economy of food deficits in Sudan

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Abstract
After escaping the ravages of the Sahelian famine of 1968–73, Sudan has begun to experience famine in the current drought. This paper examines recent commercial and subsistence patterns of food production in Sudan In relation to shifting structures of accumulation in order to account for Sudan's rising vulnerability to famine. It argues that the combination of the cumulative effects of capitalist agricultural expansion with the ascendancy of policies of ‘trilateral co‐operation’ under Arab foreign capital during the 1970s set Sudan firmly on a course toward chronic and increasing food deficits. Peasant producers face a rapidly declining ability to meet their consumption needs, including food, through direct production at the same time that rain‐fed capitalist agriculture Is being reoriented toward increased export production. As we go to press severe famine threatens to spread throughout this country which is expected to provide both for its own population, and for a million refugees from the surrounding region.

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