TIAA-CREF

Altamiran Ribeiro, a Brazilian land rights activist, told an audience at John Hopkins University about the land takeovers on behalf of corporations in Brazil and the long-term consequences on local communities and the environment.

Tenemos pruebas de que los incendios del Cerrado también están vinculados a otros intereses financieros con sede en Estados Unidos: el Fondo de Dotación de la Universidad de Harvard y el TIAA, el fondo de pensiones privado que invierte en nombre de millones de profesores, académicos, enfermeras y trabajadores del gobierno en todo el país.

Satellite maps show the connection between Harvard and TIAA's farmland acquisitions in Brazil's Cerrado and the massive number of fires that have been burning in the region since July of this year.

The Vermont Pension Investment Committee has invested $100 million in the Nuveen Global Farmland Fund, which aims to make farmland acquisitions averaging $20m across the US, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Poland, Romania and Chile.

Worldwide farmland under management reversed upward trends in recent years, with assets falling 15.7% to $16.2 billion, according to Pensions & Investments' annual survey.

As foreign ownership of agriculture land continues to increase, efforts to limit foreign ownership of US farmland have gained traction.

The shameful story of how 1 million black families have been ripped from their farms. A war waged by deed of title has dispossessed 98 percent of black agricultural landowners in America.

By buying up US farmland and leasing it to large-scale farm machinery operators, TIAA is closing the door on policies that could revive the more diversified farming that used to underlie healthy local economies.

According to asset managers, a window is emerging for institutional money to flow into agriculture due to change of ownership, notably in markets such as Australia and the US.

As foreign ownership of agriculture land continues to increase, efforts to limit foreign ownership of U.S. farmland have gained traction.

Grassroots International is supporting partners and allies in a global campaign to stop violent and illegal land grabs at their source: the massive financial investments of pension funds and college endowments.

Harvard University, the US pension fund manager TIAA/Nuveen and Japan's Mitsui are among the foreign companies buying up Brazilian farmlands that are responsible for over 420,000 ha of deforestation in the Cerrado since 2000.