Do grain reserves necessarily contribute to prices stability and food security in Sudan? An assessment

Most governments in Africa implement policies aiming to stabilize the prices of staple foods, which often include building up grain reserves, besides other trade measures insulating their domestic market from the world market. The mechanism should ideally work as follows, grains should be bought and stored from areas, during the surplus seasons (after harvest) so as to assure fair prices to producers and should be distributed during deficit seasons, in deficit areas besides in cases of emergencies. However, ideal approaches are not necessarily followed in many developing countries due to different constraints and situations. The Strategic Reserve Corporation (SRC) is an institution that is established ten years ago to play such a role in Sudan. This paper tries to assess the performance of the SRC against the overall goals and to study the related obstacles if any. We use a sample of 112 respondents from the SRC staff, related and grain farmers as our data source. Results of the research revealed numerous financial and administrative constraints that obstruct SRC from playing the intended role, which need to be considered so as to contribute to price stability and food security in Sudan.