Bloomberg | 4 May 2011

By Debarati Roy

Galtere Ltd. hopes to raise $1 billion for a private-equity fund created in September to invest in agricultural assets, according to Renatto Barbieri, the portfolio manager.

Half the fund will be invested in rice farms in Brazil and in beef and cattle production in Australia, Barbieri said. The remaining money will be allocated to infrastructure, including grain-storage facilities, he said.

“We are looking at rice farmlands as it is the main food crop,” Barbieri said yesterday during an interview at an agriculture conference in New York. “Have you heard of anyone dying because of not eating sugar or corn or soybeans?”

Galtere was founded in 1997 by Renee Haugerud, who spent 15 years at Cargill Inc., according to the company.

To contact the reporter on this story: Debarati Roy in New York at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Steve Stroth at [email protected].