Foreigners hope to reap a bounty in hungry Africa

Agriculture is still a fraction of Sudan's total foreign investment. Oil has drawn more than $12 billion from China, Malaysia and India alone. Saudi interest in Sudan picked up sharply this year. The Persian Gulf country invested a fortune in cutting-edge technology to enable its own farmers to grow wheat in the desert. But the nation began to look outside, worried about long-term depletion of its underground water.

Investors with a longer history in Sudan say the country has already delivered impressive yields. By introducing a technique known as "zero tillage," in which seeds are planted without tilling the soil, the Arab-Sudanese Blue Nile Agriculture Co. said it drove cotton and sorghum yields up nearly three-fold.

"That's a remarkable increase in food production," said the project's deputy chief, Suleiman Shugeiry.

Officially, investors in Sudan are encouraged to assist communities by sharing irrigation systems, lending machinery or setting aside land for small farmers. But such benefits don't always materialize, and those snubs can lead to bad feelings.

For generations, the green fields of Wad Rawah, south of Khartoum, were used by Ahmed Mohammed Abdalla's family to grow sorghum. But when the Emirates-owned Zayed al Khair moved next door, his family lost the rights to more than 50 acres without compensation.

The foreign firm constructed a network of canals from the Nile for its crops, but it has refused to share the water. "They took our land and gave us nothing," said Abdalla, 80.

The firm hires about 300 locals as day laborers and permits herders to graze animals during the off-season. They also built a mosque.

But locals said foreigners should do more. "We don't need a mosque," Abdalla said. "We need hospitals and schools."

For investors, security and stability pose additional risks, analysts say. In the 1970s, Arab nations struck similar agricultural deals with Sudan, but most pulled out amid the country's worsening north-south civil war and a shift in government policy that nationalized some private ventures.

Sudan's current political problems, including the Darfur conflict, U.S. economic sanctions, an International Criminal Court genocide prosecution and the upcoming presidential election, could similarly threaten the foreign partnerships, said University of Khartoum economics professor Ibrahim Sobahi.

"This kind of investment tends to be shy because investors are sensitive to national and international hazards," he said. "The next three or four years in Sudan could be rough."

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edmund.sanders@latimes.com