Farming against the odds: How local synergies are sustaining agriculture amid conflict and displacement in Eastern Sudan
Drawing on field insights and local experiences from Gadarif State in eastern Sudan, this blog explores how small-scale farmers, large-scale farmers, and internally displaced persons (IDPs) are forging new partnerships to sustain agriculture and livelihoods amid conflict and displacement.
Conflict-driven transformations in farming systems
As the war that began in April 2023 continues to devastate Sudan, its effects are felt not only in cities and active conflict zones but also in the fields and farms that feed the nation. In Gadarif State in eastern Sudan, where large-scale mechanized farming coexists with smallholder agriculture, the turmoil has triggered deep shifts in how farming is organized and sustained. The ongoing conflict has disrupted the old models of agricultural production. Yet amid this uncertainty, something remarkable is emerging which is new forms of synergy between different farming actors, including large-scale farmers, small-scale farmers, and IDPs. These take the form of share-farming arrangements, land leasing, and collaborative work that connect available labour with underutilized land.
For large-scale farmers dealing with restricted access to credit, escalating input costs, and severe labour shortages, such arrangements are essential for maintaining agricultural operations and preventing land abandonment. Small-scale farmers enter these partnerships to cope with rising food prices and living expenses, enabling them to stabilise household income. For IDPs, these informal agreements provide one of the few available avenues to access land, generate earnings, and integrate into the host economy, offering both livelihood opportunities and a degree of social anchoring amid displacement.
Under these sharecropping arrangements, large-scale farmers typically prepare the land and carry out the initial cultivation, including ploughing and planting. For sesame, this collaboration begins early in the season, with large-scale farmers providing ploughing, seeds, and sometimes water, while small-scale farmers and IDPs take on labour-intensive tasks such as weeding and harvesting. For sorghum, cooperation is concentrated at the harvesting stage once the crop has matured, with small farmers and IDPs joining the process later in the season. In return for their labour and seasonal contributions, they receive an agreed-upon share of the harvest, most commonly a 50–50 split. However, in some cases, large-scale farmers take up to two-thirds when they provide additional services, such as harvesting support, packaging materials, drinking water, or small seasonal loans.
Before the outbreak of war, large-scale farmers in Gadarif depended almost exclusively on hired seasonal labour to carry out land preparation, weeding, and harvesting. Their production systems were structured around paid labour rather than partnerships with small-farmer or displaced families. Historically, much of the seasonal agricultural labour force in eastern Sudan has been drawn from marginalised and migrant communities. South Sudanese, Nuba Mountains workers, Darfuri labourers, and—more recently—Ethiopian labour migrants and refugees have long constituted the backbone of seasonal agricultural labour across the large-scale farming schemes in Gadarif.
These arrangements have been particularly visible in the central and southern parts of Gadarif State. For the IDPs in rural host communities, their initial entry point into agriculture is often through sharecropping agreements with small-scale farmers. Over time, as trust builds and opportunities expand, many IDPs also begin entering into agreements with large-scale farmers, gradually integrating into different layers of the local farming economy.
Key learnings from these synergies
A key learning from these synergies is that supporting and scaling these local adaptive strategies can be more impactful than externally designed solutions. Unlike top-down interventions that often overlook local dynamics, these grassroots arrangements emerge from necessity, trust, and lived experience. By drawing on existing social ties, customary practices, and resource-sharing norms, they address immediate needs such as labour shortages, land access, and livelihood recovery in ways that are both practical and culturally embedded. Scaling such approaches, through technical support, fair land governance frameworks, and recognition of informal partnerships, can not only sustain agricultural productivity during crises but also strengthen community resilience in the long term.
These synergistic interactions are more than short-term survival tactics. They reflect a deeper, community-based resilience a willingness to adapt, share, and find solutions outside formal institutions. At the same time, they bring up critical issues around fairness, land access, and vulnerability. In many cases, the rules of engagement are shaped by power dynamics, land tenure uncertainty, and informal negotiation. Not all participants benefit equally, and some are left navigating fragile and sometimes exploitative arrangements.
Looking ahead
These emerging synergies offer both hope and warning. They demonstrate that even in the midst of conflict and displacement, communities continue to find creative ways to sustain agriculture through cooperation, shared risk, and the reinvention of traditional practices. Across many parts of Gadarif State, farmers IDPs are entering new forms of partnership, pooling labour, land, and limited resources to survive in the absence of functioning state support. Such local innovations testify to the strength of social ties and collective agency in times of crisis.
Yet these same arrangements also expose the fragility of the systems that underpin them. Without clear land rights, equitable access to inputs, and institutional support, cooperative models risk deepening existing inequalities or becoming temporary coping mechanisms rather than pathways to long-term recovery. Recognising, protecting, and scaling these locally led initiatives therefore requires deliberate policy attention, linking community resilience with fair governance and inclusive rural development.
Sudan’s farming systems are changing not by design, but by necessity. The pressures of war, displacement, and environmental stress are forcing adaptation at every level. And within this transformation, a quiet resilience is taking root: one shaped not by external interventions, but by the determination of ordinary people who refuse to give up on their land, their livelihoods, or each other. Their efforts remind us that the seeds of recovery are already in the soil what remains is to nurture them with justice, recognition, and sustained support.
Ethical considerations in analysing framing cooperation amidst conflict
While this blog sheds light on the forms of local cooperation and adaptation that have emerged amidst conflict, it does not suggest that conflict is a positive or desirable force. Rather, it acknowledges the immense suffering, displacement, and institutional collapse caused by the ongoing war in Sudan. The emphasis on local agency aims to show how communities demonstrate resilience under extreme adversity not to romanticize the harsh realities they face. This analysis remains mindful of the ethical responsibility to frame conflict as a destructive backdrop against which human creativity and solidarity arise out of necessity, not choice.
This Sudanese Perspectives blog post is written by Hussein M. Sulieman, a Professor at the Centre for Remote Sensing and GIS, University of Gadarif, and Cluster Leader for Climate Change and Food Security at the SNAC project. Hussein is currently a Cara (Council for At-Risk Academics) Fellow, hosted as Sponsored Researcher at the Global Development Institute, University of Manchester.
The views expressed in this post are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the SNAC project or CMI.
