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.

Daewoo Logistics Corp., a South Korean natural-resource development company, expects a project to lease vast tracts of farmland in Madagascar to grow corn and palm oil may cost about $6 billion over the first 20 years. The investment will pay for the lease costs as well as building a port, roads, irrigation, and power plants, along with schools and hospitals for locals, Shin Dong Hyun, a manager leading the project, said today by phone.

La compagnie Daewoo logistics entend planter du maïs sur une surface totale de 1 million d'hectares.

Pirates are not the only source of concern off the African coast. The deal South Korea’s Daewoo Logistics is negotiating with the Madagascan government looks rapacious. Alas, it is but the latest brazen example of a wider phenomenon.

Daewoo Logistics of South Korea said it expected to pay nothing to farm maize and palm oil in an area of Madagascar half the size of Belgium, increasing concerns about the largest farmland investment of this kind.

A South Korean company hopes to turn an undeveloped stretch of Madagascar into a corn-production center, an official said Wednesday.

South Korea's Daewoo Logistics will plant corn in Madagascar, a company official said on Tuesday, with a long-term aim to replace more than half the corn it currently imports from mostly the United States.

Daewoo Logistics of South Korea has secured farmland in Madagascar to grow food crops for Seoul, in a deal that diplomats and consultants said was the largest of its kind.

Le Président de la République, Marc Ravalomanana, a reçu en audience ce jeudi 30 octobre 2008 en fin d’après-midi, au Palais d’Iavoloha, une délégation d’opérateurs économiques sud-coréens, conduite par le Président de la Compagnie Daewoo Madagascar

Nowadays, the concern of the Malagasy governement is focused on how to attract foreign private investments. The new Malagasy investment law, Act 2007-036 of January 14th, 2008, has brought a very key change concerning the possibility for foreigners to own their land in Madagascar

"In a wide-ranging conversation, Sudanese business magnate Osama Daoud outlined a project to gradually develop as much as 1.26 million acres in northern Sudan for agricultural production," reports the US Embassy in Khartoum