Agricultural Mechanization Status in the Sudan

Agricultural mechanization and it is impact on agricultural productivity was studied by many authors in different areas in the world. Irrigated agriculture in the Sudan, have played a significant role in expanding agricultural mechanization, and the major mechanized operation is the land preparation, operations such as planting, spraying, fertilizer application, mechanical weeding and harvesting are still largely carried out manually. A study survey on mechanization status was implemented in River Nile State, focuses on mechanization status for production of wheat as strategic crop, legumes as food crops, onion and alfalfa as cash crops in smallholder farms. The analysis of results from respondent answers show that tillage operation has the high percent (90.5-93.3%) of mechanical power among other operations for production of the selected crops, where wheat has considerable percent of using mechanical power in sowing and harvesting operations compare to the three rest crops. For legumes and alfalfa broadcasting of seeds for sowing and cutting and binding at harvest operations, still manual activity prevailing, where for onion transplanting are 100% carried out manually. For the mechanization level range between 0.2-0.58, which reflect the less number of tractors to the cultivated areas in the state. Concerning the mechanization index as the ratio of mechanical power to the total power input in term of MJ/ha for each crop range from 0.03- 0.07, shows that manual and animal power still exerted to produce such crops.For socioeconomics characteristics, regression analysis included some variables shows that had negative and some with positive signs on wheat and faba bean crops productivity. The positive are education level, farm size, mechanization level, farm labour engaged in agriculture, and the recommended technical packages. The great impact of this study with the past experiences has the motivator to strengthen the weak points and enhance the positive ones to learn for the future development of mechanization formulation.