In past years Mohammed Haroun readily found work on Sudanese farms but this year he is left empty-handed as agribusinesses, starved of cash by fighting in Sudan, leave their land fallow. Like hundreds of farm labourers from across Sudan, Haroun made his way to Gedaref state, the country’s breadbasket, at the first sign of rain, which heralds the start of the growing season. But this year – with the country embroiled in brutal fighting between warring generals – no one was expecting them. The state’s large, mechanised farms are not taking on workers, as a cash crunch hits their finances, jeopardising a harvest that normally meets 40 percent of Sudan’s grain needs and fuelling fears of famine. Haroun makes the annual journey for work from his home region of Kordofan, hundreds of kilometres to the west. “In the past, I would never be waiting for more than a day,” he told AFP, lying on the untilled soil with his possessions around him. “I’ve been here for five days now with no job offer and I’ve run out of money. I don’t know where my next meal is coming from.” Around him, the rain has already started falling on the fallow fields – meaning that it is now probably already too late to sow a crop this year. Saddled with debt One bad season could spell disaster in a country where one in three inhabitants were in need of aid even before a power struggle between rival generals erupted into all-out fighting on April 15. More than 80 percent of Sudan’s workforce is employed in agriculture, which generates 35 to 40 percent of gross domestic product, according to the United Nations. Mirghani Ali sells farm supplies including seedlings, fertilisers and pesticides, and has never seen anything like this season. “We should be overwhelmed with orders right now, but here we are at the end of May, and demand is incredibly low,” he said. For Mohammed Abdelkarim, who cultivates 10,000 acres (over 4,000 hectares) of corn, cotton and sunflowers, the cause is clear: financing has been cut off. “Banks headquartered in Khartoum have not responded to requests since mid-April,” when the fighting began. “And even if financing does come through, we’ll need time to get seedlings, and we don’t know if we’ll have access to fuel to power our machines.”