SUDAN. Chongori, Nuba Mountains, Sudan. January, 2024.

Girls at a water well in a rocky area near the village of Chongori deep in Sudan's Nuba Mountains.

The Nuba practice a form of shifting agriculture. Land is planted with a selection of crops and farmed until a new plot is needed. As a result, the regular demand for new land is an integral part of the farming system. This demand and the need to allow used land to regenerate is upheld in the traditional Nuba land laws. In any given area, the Nuba recognize three types of land: individually owned land, vacant land that is recognized as being communally owned by a village or hill community, and vacant land that does not belong to anyone. Any, usually male, member of a village community has the right of access to communal lands. All he or she has to do is to clear and cultivate the land to make it his or her own. The patterns in Nuba agricultural production reveal several risk-spreading factors. For example, a range of crops grown on a range of plots relieves the land from the pressures of monoculture. Harvesting times are staggered to allow for lean times. Families try to produce a range of crops to cover most of their subsistence needs. Leaving large tracts of land unused gives herders room for grazing without interfering with crop production. However, now that the practice of large-scale mechanized farming is spreading, this integrated system is being eroded. The ability of Nuba farmers to respond to erratic rainfall and climate change has been severely limited by the expansion of mechanized farming. As is the case in many areas in the Sudan where mechanized farming has displaced traditional farming, the mere subsistence of millions of people is severely affected.