The escalation of violence around the north-south border in the run-up to Sudan’s big divide has sparked fears of a new civil war, but experts contend that the issue is more about land and water rather than oil.

A new report published this week claims farmers in Africa are being driven off their traditional lands to make way for vast new industrial farming projects backed by European hedge funds seeking profits and foreign countries looking for cheap food.

Most of the current and past conflicts over Dominion Farms’ development of the Yala swamp can be traced back to three structural problems: poor communication, cultural and social misunderstanding and political involvement.

Nitol-Niloy Group and Bhati Bangla Agrotec of Bangladesh aim to invest an initial US$18 million to lease around 40,000 hectares of African land by the end of this year to grow foodstuff, most of which they will be obliged to sell in Bangladesh.

Protestors have been demonstrating in Geneva against the growth in investments in agriculture that they say endangers food security in many developing countries.

Institutions including Harvard and Vanderbilt reportedly use hedge funds to buy land in deals that may force farmers out.

The Chinese firm will finance farming of wheat, corn, soybeans, fruit and vegetables and the production of wine in Rio Negro without buying the 300,000 hectares of land, said Rio Negro's economy development secretary Maximiliano Bruno.

Foreign investment in land opens a new chapter in the colonization of Africa, said today (Tuesday) in London one of the leaders of the think-tank Coalition for Dialogue on Africa (CoDA).

Large-scale land deals in Africa have been characterized by a lack of transparency, making it impossible to assess their benefits, according to Festus Mogae, the former president of Botswana.

Land Minister Nkwinti proposes "precarious tenure" policy rather than outright prevention of foreigners from owning SA land

Both companies are active farmland investors, with Citadel controlling a reported 200,000 hectares in Sudan and operating Egypt's largest dairy farm.

Hedge funds are behind "land grabs" in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says