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

The company said it had leased 1.3m hectares of farmland - about half the size of Belgium - from Madagascar for 99 years. It planned to ship the corn and palm oil harvests back to South Korea. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.