When Nature Writes the State’s Strategy

Adel Al-Rifai Abu Al-Hassan
It is self-evident that birds, fish and seeds do not go to universities to learn their nature. Birds do not study how to fly, fish do not learn how to swim, and seeds do not learn how to germinate. God has endowed each of them with its nature and abilities, and has provided it with what enables it to live, grow and flourish.
But success does not depend on ability alone. Environmental suitability is among the most important factors in success, distinction, excellence and prosperity. A bird needs a space suited to its nature, a fish needs water, and a seed needs suitable soil, water and climate. The more closely the nature of a living organism is aligned with its environment, the better it can make use of its abilities.
This principle applies to states as well. Every country has its own nature, resources, characteristics, geographical location, climate, soil, rivers and coastline. Taken together, these constitute its strategic assets. A state must therefore understand what God has bestowed upon it, build its strategy around those endowments, and operate in harmony with its nature and environment.
Among God’s blessings upon us in Sudan is that our natural environment has not left us with the difficult or obscure task of discovering our strategic advantage. Nature has spoken—and it has spoken loudly and clearly: Sudan is an agricultural country.
This fact is known to Sudanese people and to the world. It appears in books, studies and geography curricula in many countries. We do not need to waste any more time proving that Sudan is an agricultural country; nature has already demonstrated it, the books have recorded it, and the world knows it.
Knowledge alone does not build, develop or bring prosperity. Its value lies in being transformed into action, translated into policies and put into practice. This is where the state’s responsibility begins: Sudan must function as an agricultural country.
If nature has determined our strategic advantage, agriculture should not be merely one sector of the state competing with others for attention and funding. It should instead form the axis—the central axis—of the national strategy for renaissance and development.
To put it more plainly: we should not simply add agriculture to the state; we should reorient the state to serve agriculture.
If Sudan is an agricultural country, then education must serve agriculture; scientific research must be directed towards improving production and productivity; roads, transport and storage must connect the land to markets; irrigation and energy must support agricultural expansion; the banking sector must provide finance suited to the nature of the agricultural season; and laws must facilitate access to land, investment, production and exports.
For this reason, the state, through all its executive institutions, must devote itself to transforming this vision into an operational strategy. Every government effort, policy, decision, infrastructure investment, and available resource should contribute to achieving this objective.
When agriculture constitutes Sudan’s strategic advantage, all state institutions must be directed towards realising it. Agriculture must not remain an isolated sector operating amid fragmented policies. In this way, agriculture can be transformed from an economic activity into an integrated state system.
This does not mean limiting ourselves to producing raw crops. Real strength begins with the land and extends through processing industries, food industries, packaging, storage, marketing and export. Livestock is likewise a natural extension of the agricultural system: agricultural residues can be converted into animal feed, while agriculture provides a substantial proportion of the inputs required for animal production, reducing costs and increasing value and returns.
Thus, the strategy becomes an integrated chain that begins with the land and does not end until the port.
To achieve this, Sudan needs an agricultural investment law that streamlines procedures related to land, ownership, and utilisation; encourages citizens and investors; and provides appropriate incentives for agricultural investment.
Agricultural finance must also receive a significant share of bank lending, with favourable repayment periods suited to the agricultural cycle, so farmers are not forced by financial necessity to sell immediately after harvest. Good finance does not merely fund a single season; it helps build farmers capable of continuing, expanding and growing.
The wider system also requires developing irrigation, roads, transport, storage facilities, and quarantine services; simplifying export procedures; exempting or reducing duties on agricultural machinery, equipment, and production inputs; opening more to modern technology and expertise; and strengthening links between Sudanese producers and global markets.
Education, the media and culture must all be partners in this transformation. Younger generations must come to understand agriculture as a science, an industry, an investment, and a future. Young people must see the land as an opportunity for success and nation-building.
Throughout its history, Sudan has witnessed promising agricultural experiments and periods of progress. Yet the greatest problem has been the absence of continuity. An initiative begins and then stops; a plan is launched and then changed; success appears and then is interrupted; and, after several years, we return to the same starting point.
This cycle of perpetual beginnings must end.
Development does not require a new beginning every time. It requires a strategy that endures, institutions that protect it, an unwavering will and the patience to allow results to emerge.
Our duty, responsibility, and both national and religious trust therefore require us to reorder our priorities, move firmly and resolutely towards agriculture, and create the conditions that will make Sudan an agricultural country in reality—not merely in books and school curricula.
We must cultivate and develop the land, expand production, invest in water resources, develop technology, build roads, irrigation, and storage infrastructure, open markets, encourage citizens and investors, and establish industries around agricultural production until we transform our natural advantage into economic and strategic strength.
What we need is not merely an agricultural plan. We need a national agricultural will—one that knows where it wants to go, has the patience to travel the road, and protects the strategy from constant change and interruption.
There is blessing in development and cultivation; there is sustenance, growth and progress in it; and there is resilience, strength and cohesion. Every piece of land developed, every field cultivated and every resource invested in adds another brick to the construction of a stronger, more stable state, better able to shape its own future.
Developing Sudan and investing in its land would not benefit Sudanese people alone. Sudanese agriculture could contribute to food security across our region and beyond. The best way to avert potential dangers, therefore, is to develop our land, invest in our resources, build our state, and transform the capacities bestowed upon us by God into productive strength, development and prosperity—for ourselves, our region and humanity at large.
Many countries have spent knowledge, money and years trying to discover their natural competitive advantage. As for us, one of God’s blessings upon us is that our nature has spoken for itself, loudly and clearly.
The land has spoken. Now it is the state’s turn to respond.
Out of a strong desire to ensure that this idea is transformed from a slogan into a state project, the phrase “The Agricultural Republic of Sudan” could become an expression of our economic identity and our national project—not a change to the country’s official name.
The Agricultural Republic of Sudan: not a new name for the state, but a state that has rebuilt its strategy around its own natural endowments.
Nature has written our strategy; all that remains is for us to read it—and then act upon it.
Nature has spoken to us, and the land has called to us… will we answer?

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=17415