US

The UK development bank has been accused of failing to protect workers from exposure to dangerous pesticides and paying “extreme poverty” wages on palm oil plantations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

If we are to take the matter of quid pro quos seriously, we should take the measure of over US$20 billion of aid forcing Ukraine to privatize its land and its economy for the profit of a few Western interests.

With fires on their Cerrado properties, Harvard’s and TIAA’s deforestation exposure appears to be growing.

With very low interest rates having taken root across asset classes and investors abiding in their hunt for higher yields, the world’s largest manager of global farmland, Nuveen, says the season may be ripe for a strategic allocation to the $2.3 trillion market for U.S. farm real estate.

One of Quebec’s largest private investors thinks he has found the perfect investment vehicles to make up for sagging bond returns: milk, almonds and maple syrup.

RIAO-RDC and its international partners demand the immediate and unconditional release of nine land defenders who are currently being held in Kisangani Central Prison under the direction of the Canadian plantation company PHC-Feronia.

Le RIAO-RDC et ses partenaires internationaux exigent la libération immédiate et sans conditions de leurs membres et leaders communautaires qui sont actuellement en détention à la prison centrale de Kisangani sous l'impulsion de la PHC-Feronia.

The student group Divest Harvard hosted a day of events calling attention to Harvard’s ownership of Brazilian land and reigniting its calls for the school to sell those holdings in the name of environmentalism.

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 Dutch newspaper Trouw identified at least seven projects that FMO funded in which the companies involved were connected to murder, intimidation, environmental damage, arbitrary arrests and land grabbing.

Navis, which is backed by the US government’s development finance institution Overseas Private Investment Corporation, will also look to acquire 10,000 acres for a durian plantation, starting in Pahang state.

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.