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.

Belgian sugar producer Finasucre has agreed to acquire the Winfield Road aggregation – the largest Macadamia portfolio in Australia – from Hancock Agricultural Investment Group for a record-breaking $59.2 million.

TRSL has also expanded another of its separate accounts held with Hancock Agricultural Investment Group by $25 million, focusing on farmland in the US and Australia.

Bill Gates spent $171 million to buy 14,500 acres of farmland in Southern Washington, the most expensive U.S. land sale so far this year, according to the Land Report.

Tokyo-based Nippon Life Insurance Company makes its first investment in a farmland investment fund through a US$92.5 million investment in an overseas farmland investment fund managed by Hancock Natural Resources Group

South Korea’s Dongbu Group will commit 45 billion won ($40 million) to a timberland and farmland fund managed by Boston-based Hancock Natural Resource Group..

U.S. institutional tax-exempt investments for farmland was up 11.1% last year, with Nuveen, PGIM and Hancock AIG leading P&I's list of farmland managers

The four farms in the ‘macadamia capital of Australia’ cover 545 ha across four adjoining farms with 109,000 mature trees and were put up for sale in 2013 by one of the largest institutional managers of agricultural real estate in the US, Hancock Farm Company.

San Diego County Employees Retirement Association plans to commit $275 million to $400 million to real assets including agriculture, mining, energy and timber in 2015.

It takes a gallon of water to produce one almond. And that's not the most insane fact about the mad dash to plant the thirsty trees in the middle of a catastrophic drought in California.

This year could see a surge in interest in farmland from investors with very little experience in this complicated asset class, reports Euromoney

With the ups and downs of the stock market in the past few years and the boom in the rural economy, institutional investors are looking at farmland as a tangible, stable asset to have in their portfolio.