🇸🇩 The cattle breeds of Sudan

Livestock raising is a main livelihood in Sudan, where long-horned cattle arrived with pastoralism by 2000 BC. Herders in the north move with their animals under communal grazing rights, while pressure on pasture and water in the west has fed conflict. Farming as a whole employs most of the workforce.

• Long-horned cattle and pastoralism reached the region by about 2000 BC.
• About 80 percent of Sudan's labour force worked in agriculture as of 2011.
• A 1975 UN mission estimated potential grazing land at 120 to 150 million hectares.
• Transhumant herders in the north hold shared rights to pasture, water and crop residues.
• Pressures on pasture and water in western Sudan were factors in the 2003 war.

Cattle in Sudan

Cattle in Sudan sit inside a livestock economy that most households depend on in some way. Livestock raising, with crop growing, is the livelihood of most of the population; about 80 percent of the labour force worked in agriculture as of 2011. In the north, herders are transhumant: they move with their animals between seasonal pastures rather than settling in one place. The earliest stock in the region was long-horned, arriving with pastoralism from about 2000 BC, when milk and butter entered local diets. Sudanese farming divides between large irrigated and mechanised schemes in the centre and small traditional holdings elsewhere. Grazing rights belong to communities or local leaders rather than to individuals.

Regions and communities

Customary grazing arrangements differ across the country. In the northern transhumant communities, livestock dominates community life and grazing rights are shared; in the western savannas, private ownership of gum arabic trees is registered while dead wood and the grass beneath are held in common. The far west also grows peanuts on rain-fed land. In the western region, growing human and animal numbers pressed on pasture and water during the 1990s and early 2000s, and disputes between ethnic groups over these rights were major factors in the warfare that began in western Sudan in 2003.

Milk, butter and beef

Milk and butter are the cattle products named, and they entered diets with pastoralism around 2000 BC, at the time long-horned cattle reached the region. Livestock raising is a main source of livelihood for most of the population, and cattle are kept for that purpose alongside sheep, goats and other stock. The country's marketed produce is otherwise plant-based, with gum arabic from Darfur and Kordofan, sesame, peanuts and sorghum leading.

Today

Grazing land shapes Sudanese cattle keeping. The Ministry of Agriculture and the FAO counted roughly 24 million hectares of pastureland, while a 1975 United Nations mission estimated potential grazing land at 120 to 150 million hectares and believed two-thirds of that was already taken up. That share has likely grown since, as livestock numbers rose. The country's trade continues to lean on crops such as sesame, sorghum and gum arabic.