The Gezira Scheme () is one of the largest

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering of plants) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has bee ...

projects in the world. It is centered on the

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

ese

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

of Gezira, just southeast of the confluence of the

Blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB color model, RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB color model, RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between Violet (color), violet and cyan on the optical spe ...

and

White Nile The White Nile ( ') is a river in Africa, the minor of the two main tributaries of the Nile, the larger being the Blue Nile. The name "White" comes from the clay sediment carried in the water that changes the water to a pale color. In the stri ...

rivers at the city of

Khartoum Khartoum or Khartum is the capital city of Sudan as well as Khartoum State. With an estimated population of 7.1 million people, Greater Khartoum is the largest urban area in Sudan. Khartoum is located at the confluence of the White Nile – flo ...

. The Gezira Scheme was begun by the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

while the area was governed as part of

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan Anglo-Egyptian Sudan ( ') was a condominium (international law), condominium of the United Kingdom and Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day South Sudan and Sudan. Legally, sovereig ...

. Water from the Blue Nile is distributed through canals and ditches to tenant farms lying between the Blue and White Nile. The Gezira (which means "island") is particularly suited to irrigation because the soil slopes away from the Blue Nile and water therefore naturally runs through the irrigation canals by gravity.Hyslop, J. (1952) : "The Sudan Story", Chapter "The Bounteous River", The Naldrett Press, London, UK The soil has a high

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolinite, ). Most pure clay minerals are white or light-coloured, but natural clays show a variety of colours from impuriti ...

content which keeps down losses from

seepage In soil mechanics, seepage is the movement of water through soil. If fluid pressures in a soil deposit are uniformly increasing with depth according to u = \rho_w g z_w, where z_w is the depth below the water table, then hydrostatic conditions wi ...

. Reginald Wingate, the

governor-general Governor-general (plural governors-general), or governor general (plural governors general), is the title of an official, most prominently associated with the British Empire. In the context of the governors-general and former British colonies, ...

of Sudan, originally envisaged the farmers growing

wheat Wheat is a group of wild and crop domestication, domesticated Poaceae, grasses of the genus ''Triticum'' (). They are Agriculture, cultivated for their cereal grains, which are staple foods around the world. Well-known Taxonomy of wheat, whe ...

but this was abandoned as the colonial authorities thought that a better

cash crop A cash crop, also called profit crop, is an Agriculture, agricultural crop which is grown to sell for profit. It is typically purchased by parties separate from a farm. The term is used to differentiate a marketed crop from a staple crop ("subsi ...

was needed. When it was discovered that Egyptian-type long staple

cotton Cotton (), first recorded in ancient India, is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective case, around the seeds of the cotton plants of the genus '' Gossypium'' in the mallow family Malvaceae. The fiber is almost pure ...

could be grown, this was welcomed as a better choice as it would also provide a raw material for the British textile industry. Cotton was first grown in the area in 1904. After many experiments with irrigation, was put under cultivation in 1914. After the lowest Nile flood for 200 years, the

Sennar Dam The Sennar Dam is an irrigation dam on the Blue Nile near the town of Sennar in the Al Jazirah (state), Al Jazirah region of Sudan. The dam is long and has a maximum height of . It was designed by the Scottish engineer Sir Murdoch MacDonald, be ...

was constructed on the Blue Nile to provide a reservoir of water. This dam was completed in 1925 and is about long. The Gezira Scheme was initially financed by the Sudan Plantations Syndicate in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and later the British government guaranteed capital to develop it. The Sudan Gezira Board took over from private enterprise in 1950 and was chaired by Arthur Gaitskell. Farmers cooperated with the Sudanese government and the Gezira Board. This network of canals and ditches was long, and with the completion in the early 1960s of the Manaqil Extension on the western side of the Gezira Scheme, by 2008 the irrigated area covered , about half the country's total land under irrigation. The main crop grown in this region was still cotton.

References

External links

Sudan: Options for the Sustainable Development of the Gezira Scheme (PDF)
Government of Sudan and the

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and Grant (money), grants to the governments of Least developed countries, low- and Developing country, middle-income countries for the purposes of economic development ...

, 17 October 2000
FAO report on Sudan economy

{{coord, 14, 30, N, 33, 10, E, display=title Gezira State Geography of Sudan Irrigation in Sudan Irrigation projects Land management

See also

References

External links