It Was Not Only the ‘Sesame Legend’ That Fell… but the Logic of the Economy Alongside It”

Nu’man Yousif Mohammed
What was presented in the article by Mr Mohand Awad on the decline of Sudanese sesame in the global market was not merely a display of shocking figures; it was, in reality, a belated alarm bell for a far deeper structural failure—one that extends well beyond a single crop or market. At its core, the issue is not the collapse of the “sesame legend” as much as it is the collapse of the very logic by which the economy is managed.
The article offered a precise diagnosis of the moment of decline: a dramatic drop in market share from nearly 30% to less than 2% in the Chinese market within just a few years. This is not a routine commercial loss, but an almost complete exit from the world’s most important market for a commodity in which Sudan was once a leading player. Yet the more important question is not what happened, but why it happened so quickly—and why the state failed to halt it.
When the Legend Collapses: How Sudanese Sesame Lost Its Global Throne
The answer lies not in the fields, but entirely outside them.
Sudanese sesame has not lost its quality, soil fertility has not declined, and agricultural expertise has not disappeared. What has been lost is something far more decisive in today’s economy: competitiveness. And competitiveness is not measured by production alone, but by the cost of reaching the market, by stability, and by the ability to honour contracts.
Here, the real story begins. The Sudanese sesame value chain has effectively become a “journey of attrition” that begins in the field and ends nowhere. Multiple fees, layered levies, rising transport costs, and wasted time—all combine to produce a commodity that loses its price advantage entirely. When the price gap reaches hundreds of dollars per tonne, as highlighted in the article, the market does not hesitate to replace the supplier. Trade does not recognise history—it recognises efficiency.
Yet the crisis goes beyond cost. The more dangerous dimension is what may be described as institutional distortion. Instead of a coherent export policy, decisions are issued in a fragmented manner by multiple authorities, without coordination or a shared vision: a state raises fees, the central bank restricts financing, and monetary policy is imposed in isolation from market realities. The outcome is not merely higher costs, but an environment that actively repels economic activity itself.
At the heart of this environment, monetary policies have compounded the problem. When companies are forced to repatriate export proceeds at exchange rates that do not reflect reality, this does not simply reduce profits—it effectively transfers losses onto them. Such policies do not increase resources; rather, they produce a well-known outcome in economic literature: activity shifts out of formal channels, exports decline, and the parallel market expands.
Then comes another critical factor: financial suffocation. The decision to block crop financing, coupled with the paralysis of collateral systems due to the suspension of land registries, did not merely create procedural obstacles—it resulted in a near-total shutdown of capital flows in the agricultural sector. In a fundamentally seasonal economy, disrupting financing does not delay activity—it cancels it entirely, wasting entire seasons that cannot be recovered.
In this sense, what has happened to the sesame sector is not a sectoral crisis—it is a microcosm of a broader failure: failure of coordination, failure in managing foreign exchange, and failure to understand the nature of global markets, which wait for no one.
Perhaps the most painful irony is that the countries that filled the gap did not necessarily possess better natural advantages; they had something more important: more rational policies. Brazil, for instance, did not outperform through climate, but through efficiency, mechanised agriculture, cost reduction, and openness to markets. Countries such as Niger, Tanzania, and Mozambique did not inherit Sudan’s market—they captured it because Sudan abandoned it.
The Question Now
The question is no longer: How did we lose the market?
It is: Can it be regained?
The realistic answer is that recovery is not impossible—but neither is it easy. Lost markets do not return automatically. Once buyers secure stable and cheaper alternatives, they will not return unless supply conditions change fundamentally.
Here, reform becomes not a choice, but a condition for survival. Reform must begin with:
Rebuilding a unified export policy
Reducing the tax and fee burden across the production chain
Urgently restoring financing to the agricultural sector
Revising exchange rate policies to restore export incentives
And most importantly: moving from exporting raw commodities to building value chains that add to the economy before goods leave it.
Conclusion
“Legends” do not collapse overnight—they erode gradually as errors accumulate without correction. What has happened to Sudanese sesame is simply the logical outcome of a long trajectory of short-sighted policies.
If this trajectory does not change, what we are witnessing today will not mark the end of the sesame story alone—it will mark the beginning of its repetition in other sectors, God forbid.

Shortlink: https://sudanhorizon.com/?p=13449