Evaluation of the privatization of government agricultural schemes in the River Nile State, Sudan : a case study of wheat resource utilization

Abstract EN

This study was carried out to measure the effect of privatization policy on the socio-economic situation of producing wheat by tenants in the River Nile State through direct comparison with the private small pump schemes where farmers managed their farms privately and had attained a considerable experience in this field.

Stratified sampling method was used to collect data from the selected schemes in the River Nile State during season 2007/08.

Multiple regression methods were used to estimate the wheat cost function for privatized and small private pumps schemes.

The results of the wheat cost function multiple regression analysis showed that the private small pumps schemes were more close to the optimal productivity, whereas, the difference between the economic productivity level and the achieved productivity was 55% for the privatized schemes and 32% for the private small pumps schemes, indicating that small farmers were utilizing their resources more efficiently than the privatized tenants.

Hence, the study recommended more rehabilitation efforts to be taken to raise the capacity of the irrigation and drainage systems, and have more access to inputs to benefit from the economies of scale.