Korea

Daewoo logistics dément l’information selon laquelle un terrain de 1,3 million d'hectares a été octroyé à titre gratuit à Daewoo.

Rich governments and corporations are triggering alarm for the poor as they buy up the rights to millions of hectares of agricultural land in developing countries in an effort to secure their own long-term food supplies.

"There is not yet any discussion about the fee because it will depend on the contract later, therefore the information released that DWL acquired a land for free is incorrect."

The South Korean company Daewoo Logistics wants to use 1 million hectares in Madagascar to grown maize. The company also wants to plant palm oil on the island.

Madagascar has denied reaching agreement with South Korea's Daewoo Logistics to let it plant more than 1 million hectares of food crops on the Indian Ocean island.

Panja Ramanoelina, ministre de l'Agriculture, de l'élevage et de la pêche, et Marius Ratolojanahary, ministre de l'Aménagement du territoire, de la réforme foncière et des domaines insistent sur le fait que le projet agricole de Daewoo Corporation n'en est qu'au stade de prospection de terrains.

La chute du cours des céréales sur les marchés mondiaux n'a pas stoppé la course aux terres agricoles par les pays qui en manquent.

Le sud-coréen Daewoo va se lancer dans la culture de maïs et la production d'huile de palme à Madagascar, où le groupe bénéficie d'une licence d'exploitation de terres immenses pour une durée de quatre-vingt-dix-neuf ans.

Madagascar officials are enthusiastic about a company's big farming plans for an undeveloped area but say the deal won't go ahead if it threatens the island's unique ecology. An environmental impact assessment was to begin shortly, the Malagasy Environment Office said Thursday.

Cambodia is in talks with several Asian and Middle Eastern governments to receive as much as $3bn in agricultural investment in return for millions of hectares in land concessions, according to a senior government official.

A lot of countries don't grow nearly enough food to feed themselves. Britain is one; South Korea, another. The giant South Korean conglomerate, Daewoo, has come up with a novel way of solving the problem of food security. It has leased a vast tract of land, 1.3 million acres, on the African island of Madagascar.

The initial welcome given to rich countries’ investment in African farmland by agricultural and development officials has faded as the first ventures prove to be heavily weighted in favour of the investors. The FAO warned of such a trend when it said this year that the race to secure farmland overseas risked creating a “neo-colonial” system.