UK

The £35bn BT Pension Scheme is seeking to replace its commodity future exposure with investment in agricultural land

The BT Pension Scheme has acknowledged that investing in agriculture land was a "real challenge" due to concerns over accusations of land grabbing.

Foreign companies from Korea, Qatar, US, UK and China are "secretly" buying up large chunks of NSW farmland by establishing shelf companies, trust funds, and extended settlements to avoid scrutiny.

The £9bn Pension Protection Fund is set to add specialist farmland and timberland fund managers to its investment manager panel to assist its alternative investment programme.

Farming is a sector that Insight Investment, a UK asset manager best known for its expertise in investing in corporate bonds and government debt, has begun to target.

The extent of the surge in UK farmland prices has driven foreign buyers and pension funds to the sidelines, leaving farmers to pay prices more than double those three years ago, property consultancy Savills said.

Fifty year lease agreement for 20,980 ha signed between Miro Forestry (SL) Limited and representatives of the Yoni Chiefdom, Tonkolili District, Sierra Leone in December 2011.

With the merger, Alpcot Agro now controls well over 250,000 hectares of farmland in Russia and the Ukraine.

Tony Hales, managing director of Stadia Trustees, puts forward the case for including farmland in clients’ self-invested personal pensions (UK)

“Zuia uporaji wa ardhi,” reads the Swahili headline of a poster on the wall of the community building in Mhaga, a densely populated village in Kisarawe, a district 100km southwest of Dar es Salaam. It means “prevent land grabbing”

UK-based investors are planning a $400 million rural land fund to buy cotton and wheat properties in eastern Australia.

As the global financial downturn pushes investors into finding alternative business ventures, land investment has become an attractive proposition.