Sudan at war and peace: an FAO photo essay.

The first startling sight wasn't long in coming. A long line of white planes and helicopters at Khartoum International Airport all displayed two black initials up to two metres tall: UN.

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Over the three weeks of my mission with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) in September 2005 to Darfur, southern Sudan, and the Nuba mountains, I saw a remarkable international presence. There is an air fleet with all necessary logistical and operational support; a security apparatus to tell us where it was safe to go; UN police to train their local counterparts in democratic policing; and de-mining teams to clear southern roads.

There are also the specialized agencies and programmes: a massive food delivery system run by the World Food Programme (WFP) using four-engine cargo jets to parachute food--an amazing sight on their drop-runs at low speed and altitude in remote areas; camps for displaced persons (photo 1) with big United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and Red Cross presence; the African Union's military monitors seen around Darfur and hundreds of national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working all over the country.

Not one but two passenger air fleets, operated by the United Nations Mission in the Sudan and WFP, using leased and borrowed aircraft, ran shuttles all over the country. Passengers carry their own baggage and United Nations "air ops" personnel handle checkin. If one shows up at the local airport with an NGO or United Nations identification, he or she can usually ride on standby. Aircrafts are full of blue berets (UN peacekeepers), international civil servants, NGO staff, volunteers, visitors like me from organizational headquarters and a few locals hitching a lift. Never a big tourist destination, Sudan does not have enough hotel beds for such an invasion; enter the improvised guesthouse that is often attached to a business office. And what about electricity for computers, lights, refrigerators and air conditioners in the 45[degrees] Celsius heat? A walk down a backstreet in a Darfurian provincial capital can also be a deafening experience, as big diesel generators operate all day and into the evening. Numerous UN-installed satellite dishes ensure good e-mail access for coordinating the massive operation.

What does Sudan, a sovereign country after all, make of this virtual state within a State? In Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, local authorities have prohibited convoys from flying UN flags within the city limits. Flag-waving has its symbolism, it seems. Our five-vehicle convoy, formed for a field trip (photo 2) to protect us against ambush, could only unfurl its blue banners after clearing the last suburb.

UN coordinators say that dealing with the provincial governor is a delicate business. UN specialized agencies have banded together, finding that a united front works best in negotiating operational and policy matters for humanitarian intervention. Government ministers in Khartoum, the capital of this centralized country, have been known to quarrel publicly with UN administrators.

FAO has the UN mandate to help rural areas. With 87 per cent of Sudan's population earning their living as farmers and herders (photo 3), the country is right down our alley. First, in West Darfur, a government official in El Geneina described the catastrophic decline in food production after almost 2 million villagers were forced from their farms during the 2003 conflict.

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Fadul Eldom Ahmed, Director of Agriculture Services for West Darfur, estimates that the area under cultivation in his state alone went down to 30 per cent of normal levels in 2004 and 66 per cent in 2005. FAO (photo 4) estimates the cultivated area in that state in 2005 at only 45 per cent. Is there any positive news to report from Sudan? "The concept of the Ministry of Agriculture is to assist those still on farms with viable seeds, advice, ploughing of land, hand tools and so on. We collaborate with many partners, such as FAO and NGOs", Mr. Ahmed says.

Across the three states of Darfur, FAO has helped 950,000 men, women and children, both returnees and those in host communities, get started again or boost food production (photo 5) to cope with the crisis. Inputs delivered to date include 1,500 tonnes of seed, 250,000 hand tools and 6,000 ploughs.

Opinion in Darfur is divided into two camps: one says violence is still too widespread to put large-scale assistance into re-establishing livelihoods like farming and herding; the other believes that emergency assistance and rehabilitation must go hand in hand.

Demere Seyoum, Field Director of World Relief, an NGO that works with FAO in providing inputs to farmers, thinks that many residents driven from their farms are eager to return "regardless of the risk". He says: "They have been going out in groups of 10 to 12 women (photo 6) for protection, walking 5 or 6 kilometres from camps to their former villages that were destroyed to cultivate their fields. The risks are certainly there-first security, but also the risk of putting in a lot of effort for a small return. Small things can really help these farmers produce a lot more."

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"We argue that people want to come back to farm. They tell us that the security situation is okay", according to Hashim Zakaria, Head of the Sudanese Popular Committee for Relief and Rehabilitation in South Darfur. "But the international community is more interested in funding relief." His comments reflect a dramatic trend for agencies like FAO, traditionally a development agency, but whose regular budget for such work has declined in the past decade while donor support for its emergency relief programme has grown rapidly. Perhaps development work is more long-term and the results are harder to see, while it is easy to judge the results of farm aid or emergency feeding and childcare in the displaced persons camps.

News broadcast in rich countries about such life-saving actions provides instant feel-good feedback to politicians, taxpayers and individuals who give generously through their favourite charities. A UN agency coordinator in Darfur pointed out that VIPs and Western politicians only want to visit and be photographed in the camps, while nearby farming villages struggling to be self-sufficient and making good use of international assistance remain in the shadows.

Southern Sudan is a different story. After the peace treaty was signed in January 2005, the authorities there invited anyone who could help to come. Again, the same logistical problems: the southern capital, Juba, has only a few hotels; hundreds of visitors, foreign and Sudanese, must sleep in tents. There are only 20 kilometres of paved roads (photo 7) in the south, so relief and rehabilitation work is slow business. The few southern towns are rundown. The nearest ocean port--either Mombasa, Kenya or Port Sudan--is a week's drive away on seasonal tracks; otherwise, imports are flown in at great expense. (At least cattle, a major southern export, can be walked to distant markets!)

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Yet, I saw some excellent models for sustainable development in southern Sudan. Even after 10 years of visiting field projects, I was surprised by the level of enthusiasm expressed by project beneficiaries. With the FAO technical training and guidance, farmers in the fertile area near Juba produced 48 tonnes of the 117 tonnes of sorghum and groundnut seeds in 2005, which FAO distributed to other farmers across three southern states. The remainder had to be bought from large commercial seed suppliers in the north.

"Thirty women in our group have been trained to multiply sorghum seeds and grow vegetables to sell for income and to cook for our families", Mary Akwajo (photo 8) says proudly as she stands in a field of tall, uniform sorghum--uniformity being the sign of a well-tended seed field. "We are really happy with this activity as it helps the women to generate money. In fact, 20 of the women have bought plots of land in town with their proceeds", she adds.

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FAO would like to see community seed production adopted across Sudan. The approach ensures timely supplies of quality seeds suitable for local conditions and tastes, and gives poor families a chance to make some money. Local seed production is just one good way for Sudanese to diversify their incomes.

I talked to the fishers (photo 9) in Malakal-the gateway to the south--on a broad stretch of the White Nile near the great Sudd swamp. They spoke of catching 100-kilo Nile perch at certain times of the year and of how before the 20-year civil war the area used to supply markets as far away as Khartoum and the Congo. FAO figures suggest 80,000 to 100,000 tonnes of fish could be pulled from southern rivers and swamps every year. It did what it could with the funding it could attract, giving out thousands of fishing kits and conducting training in boat-building and fish processing.

But why can't donor Governments and generous individuals in rich countries get the same warm feeling from helping these poor people (photo 10) as from helping the displaced persons of Darfur? Why can't they give more assistance to scale up Sudan's fisheries and pay for what the fishers told me they lack: cold storage and transport boats to get fresh fish to market?

(For political background on the Darfur crisis and to read the report of the International Commission of Inquiry, Mr. Lowrey recommends the Sudan Information Gateway at www.unsudanig.org. "Clearly written, even gripping, the authoritative paper by eminent international jurists and investigators contains what you need to know about the situation".)

Peter Lowrey (right) is an information officer and an editorial coordinator with the Communication and Design Group of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, based in Rome, Italy.

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TEXT BY PETER LOWREY AND IMAGES BY [c] JOSE CENDON