Huge Madagascar Tract Leased to S. Koreans for Crops, Biofuels

A South Korean company, Daewoo Logistics, has agreed to take a 99-year lease on 5,000 square miles of land in Madagascar to grow palm oil, corn, and other crops, the London Telegraph reports. Daewoo has committed to build the roads and infrastructure on the land, which is nearly as large as the state of Connecticut and represents almost half of the acreage now under cultivation in the island nation. The deal is similar to those that China — looking for guaranteed supplies of agricultural commodities — has signed in recent years in Africa. A Daewoo official said his company hopes to form partnerships with other Korean and Chinese firms to eventually grow 5 million tons of corn a year and 500,000 tons of palm oil, which is increasingly used as a biofuel.