The grain market is the reason Gedaref exists. Vast quantities of sorghum, sesame, sunflower seed, peanut, and cotton pass through here every year, brokered between the farmers of the Butana plains and buyers from Khartoum, Port Sudan, and beyond. The trade gives the city its rhythm — busy in the harvest months from late autumn through winter, quieter when the rains come.
Wander through in the early morning before the heat sets in. Sacks are stacked head-high, brokers and farmers haggle over weights, and the air smells of grain dust and diesel. It is one of the largest agricultural markets in the country and a window into the economy of rural Sudan, which still rests on rain-fed farming.