The irrigation canals of the Gezira Scheme as seen from space, 1997
The Gezira Scheme (Arabic: مشروع الجزيرة) is one of the largest irrigation projects in the world. It is centered on the Sudanese state of Gezira, just southeast of the confluence of the Blue and White Nile rivers at the city of Khartoum. The Gezira Scheme was begun by the British while the area was governed as part of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. Water from the Blue Nile is distributed through canals and ditches to tenant farms lying between the Blue and White Nile.
The Gezira (which means "island") is particularly suited to irrigation because the soil slopes away from the Blue Nile and water therefore naturally runs through the irrigation canals by gravity.[1] The soil has a high clay content which keeps down losses from seepage. Reginald Wingate, the British governor-general of Sudan, originally envisaged the farmers growing wheat but this was abandoned as the colonial authorities thought that a better cash crop was needed. When it was discovered that Egyptian-type long staple cotton could be grown, this was welcomed as a better choice as it would also provide a raw material for the British textile industry.[2] Cotton was first grown in the area in 1904. After many experiments with irrigation, 24 square kilometres (9.3 sq mi) was put under cultivation in 1914.[1]
After the lowest Nile flood for 200 years, the Sennar Dam was constructed on the Blue Nile to provide a reservoir of water. This dam was completed in 1925 and is about 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) long. The Gezira Scheme was initially financed by the Sudan Plantations Syndicate in London and later the British government guaranteed capital to develop it. The Sudan Gezira Board took over from private enterprise in 1950[1] and was chaired by Arthur Gaitskell.[3]
Farmers cooperated with the Sudanese government and the Gezira Board. This network of canals and ditches was 4,300 kilometres (2,700 mi) long, and with the completion in the early 1960s of the Manaqil Extension on the western side of the Gezira Scheme, by 2008 the irrigated area covered 8,800 square kilometres (3,400 sq mi), about half the country's total land under irrigation.[4] The main crop grown in this region was still cotton.
^ abcHyslop, J. (1952) : "The Sudan Story", Chapter "The Bounteous River", The Naldrett Press, London, UK
^Bernal, Victoria (1997). "Colonial Moral Economy and the Discipline of Development: The Gezira Scheme and "Modern" Sudan" (PDF). Cultural Anthropology. 12 (4): 447–479. doi:10.1525/can.1997.12.4.447. Retrieved 8 November 2015.
^Rupert Hall, A.; Bembridge, B. A. (1986). Physic and Philanthropy: A History of the Wellcome Trust 1936-1986. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 70. ISBN 9780521326391.
^"Agriculture Sectors (in Sudan)". Embassy of the Republic of Sudan, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 2008. Archived from the original on July 22, 2011. Retrieved December 5, 2009.
The GeziraScheme (Arabic: مشروع الجزيرة) is one of the largest irrigation projects in the world. It is centered on the Sudanese state of Gezira, just...
the Funj Sultanate. Katfia in Gezira was the place where the Wad Habuba Revolt took place in April 1908. The GeziraScheme was a program launched in 1925...
on the Blue Nile as a reservoir in order to supply water to the huge GeziraScheme on a regular basis. It was the first dam on the Nile to retain large...
Agronomy portal Deficit irrigation GeziraScheme Irrigation management Irrigation statistics Leaf Sensor Lift irrigation scheme List of countries by irrigated...
electricity generation from hydropower. These dams also help irrigate the GeziraScheme, which is most famous for its high-quality cotton, as well as wheat...
following the 1925 GeziraScheme of irrigation to stimulate local economic development. Wad Madani is a commercial centre of the Gezira agricultural district...
(see also New Valley Project) Sweet Water Canal Great Man-Made River GeziraScheme Zaghouan Aqueduct Ella, Kandy Big Western Line (proposed) Irtysh–Karamay–Ürümqi...
Gezira Light Railway, one of the largest light railways in Africa, evolved from tracks laid in the 1920s' construction of the canals for the Gezira Scheme...
depending on the source, it gained some recognition during the British GeziraScheme, when Sudanese labourers protested their relative powerlessness by working...
modern agricultural sector and leased it to tenants (for example, in the GeziraScheme) or to private entrepreneurs, such as most operators of large-scale...
principal development inheritance in 1956 thus was the vast irrigated GeziraScheme and Sudan Railways. The new government did not attempt to prepare a...
consumption centers. The other line, the Gezira Light Railway, was owned by the Sudan Gezira Board and served the GeziraScheme and its Manaqil Extension. In 1959...
"peninsula") the land between the Blue Nile and the White Nile where the great GeziraScheme was developed. This project grows cotton for export and has historically...
they were considered more efficient the development of new irrigation schemes became technically, financially and organizationally so complicated that...
Nazif urged the two countries to focus on two specific projects: the GeziraScheme which aims to cultivate some two million acres (8,000 km2) of land in...
1960s of the Manaqil Extension on the western side of the GeziraScheme. In 2010 the GeziraScheme accounted for the great majority of the country's total...
the basic needs for manufactured goods. Indirectly, however, the vast GeziraScheme led to the construction of cotton gins, of which more than 20 were in...
irrigation and farming operations. In 1922, when the establishment of the GeziraScheme was announced as the largest irrigated project in the world; Aziz Kafouri...
Sudan Gezira Board which had oversight of the GeziraScheme. He was appointed to the East Africa Royal Commission (1953-55). Gaitskell A. (1959) Gezira: A...
Condominium era, Egypt was Sudan's main customer. The development of the GeziraScheme, however, resulted in large-scale exports of cotton to the United Kingdom...
Bashaqra Area Settlements 1963: A Case Study in Village Development in the GeziraScheme. University of Khartoum. Butler, John; Crooke, Patrick (1973). Urbanization...
hydroelectricity, irrigate the desert and create such projects as the GeziraScheme. "The 26th Academy Awards (1954) Nominees and Winners". oscars.org....
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