Lonrho, the pan-African conglomerate listed in London, has secured leasehold rights to 25,000 hectares of rice paddies in Angola and is negotiating two bigger land deals in Mali and Malawi, in another sign of investor appetite for African land.

David Lenigas, Lonrho’s executive chairman, said the group has agreed to a 50-year lease of the rice fields in the Uige province of Angola, which were abandoned during the country’s long civil war that ended in 2002.