Emergent

Institutions including Harvard and Vanderbilt reportedly use hedge funds to buy land in deals that may force farmers out.

Hedge funds are behind "land grabs" in Africa to boost their profits in the food and biofuel sectors, a US think-tank says

Other countries believe their agricultural expertise can kickstart an agrarian revolution across the African continent

Video of the Panel: Can Funds and Financial Institutions promote good land-based investment practice? Featuring represetatives of Rabobank, Emergent Asset Management, TIAA-CREF and Galtere Ltd).

Das Klima ist ideal, Arbeitskräfte sind billig und die lukrativsten Märkte sind nur wenige Flugstunden entfernt. In Äthiopien züchten Investoren tonnenweise Gemüse und Reis. Jedoch nicht für die Bevölkerung.

David Murrin, CIO at Emergent Asset Management, stresses the difficulties of jumping aboard the African growth story. "It is very hard to take advantage of the tremendous growth in African agriculture and that's why private equity investment is so important, it helps capture some of that growth," he says.

A pioneer investor in farmland and the food price rally is looking ahead to new trends -- war, epidemics and climate change as the investment opportunities of the future.

Les risques les plus élevés d'expropriation de terres agricoles demeurent en Amérique latine, mais l'impact le plus fort des tensions actuelles pourrait se faire sentir sur les accords de terres conclus ou projetés en Afrique.

Food prices are soaring again and the highest risks of farmland expropriation remain in Latin America, while the greatest impact of the recent rally could be on land deals in Africa.

Mounting concern over security of food supplies is spurring a wave of private-sector investment in Africa.

African governments need to raise their level of accountability and ensure that they improve and protect their own food security through quid pro quo side-agreements negotiated when they lease or sell their arable land to foreign interests, says Keith Mullin of Thompson Reuters

Report on the growing popularity of farmland investment in the developing world for European pension funds