Sudan Food Security Outlook, June 2022 to January 2023

Poor macroeconomic conditions and inter-communal conflicts drive high needs

Key Messages

The below-average harvest of the 2021/22 season, significantly above-average cereal and non-cereal food prices, combined with the continued poor macroeconomic situation, political instability, and intercommunal clashes in the Darfur region, South Kordofan, Kassala, the Red Sea, and Abyei area that displaced around 220,000 people between the end of April and mid-June are driving above normal humanitarian food assistance needs in June 2022. An increasing number of people are facing Crisis (IPC Phase 3) or worse outcomes between June and September 2022.

With the start of the rainy season in June, the government is targeting an estimated planting area of just under 64.6 million feddans (~27.1 million hectares) for the 2022/2023 agricultural season. However, land preparation and planting have been constrained by shortages and high prices of the essential agricultural inputs due to insufficient financial support for farmers from the Agricultural Bank of Sudan (ABS) and difficulties importing agricultural inputs due to high prices and a lack of hard currency.

In June 2022, staple food prices remain four to five times above the five-year average, driven by reduced market supplies, shortages and high prices of imported wheat, high inflation, and continued local currency devaluation. In June, the SDG to USD exchange rate was 23 percent higher than June 2021 and 289 percent higher than the five-year average. Food prices will likely remain extremely high through the November 2022 to January 2023 harvest. Despite some improvements in livestock prices and wage labor rates, household purchasing power remains well below average, negatively impacting household market food access.

Source: Famine Early Warning System Network