Market Trends of Sudan Alfalfa Industry
Raising Demand for Meat and Diary Product
- Sudanese household food demand focuses on aggregated food items such as cereals, meat, milk, and eggs. Food consumption patterns have changed due to increased income and adverse rural-urban migration.
- The country has one of the largest livestock populations in the country. Hence, the country exports live animals and chilled meat to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, and Abu Dhabi. According to the International Trade Center (ITC) Trade map, Sudan exported total meat and edible meat offal worth 66,641 USD thousand in 2021. Egypt remains the major export destination for meat, followed by the United Arab Emirates in the same year.
- Poultry meat and eggs have assumed increasing importance in the Sudanese economy and Sudanese diets in recent years. Some of the firms engaged in alfalfa production have also initiated dairy farming locally in Sudan to export value-added live calves and meat products, especially to countries such as United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia.
Increasing Production within the Country
- The production of alfalfa in Sudan is showcasing a consistently increasing trend. One of the major driving factors is the increasing investments in the country by various foreign firms, especially from the GCC countries. Khartoum is one of the major states in Sudan, with a share of more than 50% of total forage crop cultivation in the country.
- This high demand has prompted local and foreign entrepreneurs on a large scale in several parts of the country. Investors have recently launched large-scale farms around Khartoum and in the North to cover the mounting demand for alfalfa in the region. The West Omdurman in Khartoum has a 10,000-acre fodder farm projected to generate an annual profit of USD 20.0 million.
- Also, Amtar (rains) grows alfalfa on a big farm in North Kordofan in the Midwest, using center-pivot irrigation from bore water. The Amtar farm operators project to export 20,000 fattened calves a month. Further, UAE-based companies like Amtaar Investment and GLB started investing in Sudanese land for forage production. The companies widely adopt centralized pivots toward increasing productivity through improved water usage efficiency.