Ministry of Gum Arabic – Whale Thorn – ✍️ Yasser Muhammad Mahmoud Al-Bishr
80% of the world’s gum arabic production is produced in Sudan. The Chinese state has conducted a number of experiments to cultivate and produce gum arabic, but it has not succeeded despite the enormous potential invested in the project to localize the hashab tree in China, and a number of countries have followed the Chinese approach. However, geography and nature have limited the production of gum arabic in Sudan and some neighboring countries, and despite the international and global interest in obtaining gum arabic, the Sudanese state and successive governments treat the wealth of gum arabic with a kind of neglect and lack of interest, and even the quantities produced from it are exported as raw material without any additional value be added to them. Instead of gum arabic being sold in grams and the price determined in the hands of the Sudanese government, it is sold in quintals and exported as a raw material and the price is determined in the hands of the buyer and in the local currency*.
*Just like the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia established the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah, what is stopping the Sudanese government from establishing a special ministry for gum arabic and providing all the necessary capabilities to re-cultivate gum arabic and encouraging farmers in the gum arabic belt to dedicate part of their agricultural areas to growing this crop that nature has given to Sudan, as if nature wanted Sudan to have the initial and final signature in the production and export of gum. Arab, without having a competitor, and if the State exploited this culture well, controlled it and promulgated laws and legislations that protect the hashab tree, the Sudanese economy would recover in years that could be counted on the fingers of one hand, if the State took serious care of the hashab tree*.
*The state must import gum arabic drying and grinding plants according to international specifications and then package it in containers of maximum one kilogram and minimum one gram. The State will be primarily responsible for determining the price of gum arabic and in foreign currencies. Countries can place a sensitive sensor in each hashab tree. If attacked at any time of day, it will appear on a screen affiliated with the Ministry of Gum Arabic, and this system is monitored by the Chinese state. By protecting the sandalwood trees in Hyderabad, apart from the heavy penalties of up to ten years in prison if any tree is felled, and when the law is like death, it never excludes anyone, then the state can be sovereign and have an insightful economic vision*.
*Unless the state adopts the cultivation and protection of the hashab tree, Sudan will fall out of the production cycle and gum arabic will become just one line in Sudan’s history. This prescription we send by mail from the government of hope (no session, no camels), knowing that hashab does not require much effort since the seeds are scattered when it rains and requires no effort thereafter except protection. The hashab tree enters the production cycle for three years and the gum arabic forest is an open grazing area. Because grazing does not affect the growth of the hashab tree, and the biggest threat to the hashab tree is unfair cutting and fires*.
Half a fork
*Sudan will not emerge from the cycle of economic backwardness that the Sudanese state is experiencing unless we think outside the box and in a scientific manner with a vision, a program and objectives*.
A quarter of a fork
*How long will Sudan remain a poor country despite its wealth of natural resources?*.
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