Unequal wealth accumulation and income inequality in a unimodal agriculture: Sudan's Radad irrigation scheme

Patterns of income, savings, and wealth accumulation of tenant farmers in the Rahad irrigation scheme of Sudan were examined. Although land and irrigation water are publicly owned and equally distributed in these schemes, unequal access to capital was found to influence strongly the distribution of family income and the saving and accumulation capacities of the tenant farmers. Analysis using Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients revealed a high positive correlation between wealth and family income. The average wealth gap between poor and rich households increased by 28 per cent over the year of the study. To reduce relative poverty, improved credit and marketing systems plus more research and extension support to enhance productivity and create higher on‐farm incomes for the poorer tenants are needed. In addition, macro and sector policies that subsidise labour‐saving technologies and lower incentives for export and domestic crop production need to be reformed to promote greater employment and higher off‐farm earnings for the poorer households.