Sudan, once envisioned as the Arab world’s breadbasket, now faces one of the gravest famines of the century. The IPC Special Snapshot for September 2025 to May 2026 confirms famine in El Fasher and Kadugli, warning that catastrophic hunger is spreading and affecting more than 25 million people. This crisis, however, is not merely a product of the war that began in April 2023. It is the culmination of a decades-long structural shift: the systematic reorientation of Sudan’s fertile land and water toward export-oriented agriculture serving Gulf food-security systems, weakening the country’s own ability to feed its population.
The war devastated agriculture, driving 2023-2024 cereal production to near-disaster levels- 46% below the previous year and 41% below the five-year average. While field surveys in late 2024 and mid-2025 showed a partial rebound to 6.7 million tonnes harvested in 2024- more than 60% above the disastrous 2023 season and slightly above the five-year average- this recovery, however, did not reach the Sudanese population. Entire farming regions have emptied, markets have collapsed, and militia control of trade routes, combined with fuel shortages, soaring prices, displacement and blocked humanitarian access, has prevented food from moving within the country. More critically, smallholder agriculture, once the backbone of Sudan’s food supply, has been systematically displaced by the expansion of vast, foreign-controlled export concessions.
This structural transformation has been facilitated by successive governments for years. They offered long leases, tax exemptions, and access to irrigation networks to attract Gulf investment. Framed as development opportunities, these measures strengthened external food-security systems while redirecting fertile land toward export agriculture. Several studies show how weak contracts, limited oversight, and political instability allowed foreign companies to entrench themselves. The risks posed by large-scale land acquisitions to local food security have been documented by United Nations agencies since at least 2011. Yet from the late Bashir era through the transitional government into the current war, no effective protections were implemented. As the state fractured after 2023, these vulnerabilities deepened, allowing foreign control foreign control to expand further and embedding Sudan’s agricultural system within external demand rather than domestic need.
For Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, Sudan offered what they lacked: abundant water, fertile soil, and scale. As domestic aquifers dried and grain cultivation became unsustainable at home, Gulf states built an external food-security architecture anchored in farmland abroad. Sudan became central to this strategy due to its proximity to Gulf markets and its large tracts of irrigable land.
Emirati firms control vast tracts of irrigated farmland. The conglomerate International Holding Company (IHC) cultivates more than 50,000 hectares devoted to fodder and export crops. Projects such as the Abu Hamad “turn the desert green”, a roughly $225 million joint venture between Abu Dhabi’s Royal Group and Sudan’s DAL Group, cover more than 100,000 hectares, with plans for further expansion. Production is supported by massive irrigation canals drawn from the Nile and geared toward Emirati consumption. These farms sit within a larger Emirati economic footprint exceeding $6 billion, spanning investments in Sudan’s foreign reserves, agricultural expansion, and port infrastructure.
Critically, the UAE has worked to ensure that crops from these lands can flow out of Sudan regardless of internal collapse. Abu Dhabi has pursued strategic port investments and established shipping routes such as the RSX1 service, which directly links Port Sudan to Jebel Ali in the UAE and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia. This infrastructure creates dedicated export corridors that bypass shattered domestic markets. Sudan functions as a crucial node in a much wider UAE strategy. Emirati firms, notably DP World and AD Ports Group, currently operate or hold concessions in about a dozen port facilities across Africa, securing long-term control over key maritime infrastructure that connects production zones to global supply chains.
This agricultural and logistical footprint exists alongside a parallel, militarized strategy to secure assets. While the UAE’s backing of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has been widely linked to securing gold flows, it also functions to protect broader economic corridors through which agricultural commodities from UAE-controlled farms must travel.
Saudi Arabia maintains a quieter presence but follows a similar logic of externalization. Its engagement has historically been more formal, slower-moving, and state-led than the UAE’s, yet it is grounded in the same long-term objective: securing fodder and feed crops abroad. The kingdom’s state-owned Saudi Agricultural and Livestock Investment Company (SALIC) announced plans to obtain Sudanese land for fodder under its external food-security program. The National Agricultural Development Company (NADEC), one of the Gulf’s major agribusiness firms, lists 3,200 hectares of Sudanese farmland dedicated to feed production. Although these records predate the war and remain smaller in scale than Emirati ventures, they illustrate a consistent pattern: Sudan’s agricultural capacity is redirected toward supplying feed crops that Saudi Arabia no longer produces domestically, embedding Sudan into the kingdom’s external agricultural supply chain.