of irrigation investment project of the Cooperative which would make the land around his home village more productive. In the first year of the project Amar bought – like 1000 other member agriculturalists, engineers, lawyers most of whom form Khartoum – two 10 acre tenancies for 1200 SDG (then 1 SDG equalled around 1 USD) each. A year later 800 tenancies were added for military officers who received a tenancy as compensation for their forced retirement by the government which was restructuring its military apparatus.

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For three years the Cooperative was in business and hoped that it would expand the modest profits it made by the services it provided for the cultivation of cotton, wheat and sesame and vegetables. For Amar,like the British engineers of the Gezira, the development of the land was key in drawing people relying on backward pastoralism and recession agriculture into the modern economy.

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For three years the Cooperative was in business and hoped that it would expand the modest profits it made by the services it provided for the cultivation of cotton, wheat, sesame and vegetables. For Amar, like the Gezira’s colonial planners, the development of irrigation was key in drawing people relying on backward pastoralism and recession agriculture into the modern economy. Yet the outlook for success of the Cooperative was short lived. A month after the project took off the Iraqi army invaded Kuwait. Soon after the new government of Beshir government sided with