Money from pension funds has fuelled the financial sector's massive move into farmland investing over the past decade. The number of pension funds involved in farmland investment and the amount of money they are deploying into it is increasing, under the radar.

Financial services group TIAA-CREF said it is partnering with Canadian and European money managers to form a $2 billion global farmland investing company to capitalize on the growing demand for grains and other agricultural products.

Minutes from the Karuturi Global Limited Q2 FY2012 results conference call.

Steve Dyer is executive director of Semper Fund Management, a $100M company that was founded in 2019 with partner Ciro Echesortu, former CEO of Louis Dreyfus Company, to seize the unique opportunity in US farmland investment.

Investors are plowing money into Russia’s open lands to resuscitate the long-neglected farm sector and supply a world in ever greater need of food.

Global fund managers and some of the world's largest pension funds have bought more than $1.5 billion of agricultural land in Australia over the past three years.

Flower growers in Kenya have gone on strike to protest unpaid wages from Karuturi Global, the Indian flower export multinational.

The agribusiness managed investment scheme sector is not expected to escape the economic downturn that has hit the financial services industry.

Eric Sprott's hunger for commodities may have wavered since last year's price collapse took a hefty strip off revenues at Sprott Inc., his money-management business. However, the legendary hedge-fund manager is still placing bets on at least one commodity: grain.

Preqin estimates that more than 100 unlisted agriculture/farmland-focused funds have closed since 2006, raising about $22 billion in aggregate capital.

The idea of combining the greed of investors with the fight against hunger as a mutually beneficial business venture has failed miserably

"All of a sudden the world is waking up and saying, 'Wow, emerging markets, food security... this asset class is going to really perform in the medium term -- the next 8-20 years,'" says new convert James Howard, manager of the Futuregrowth Agri-Fund

Pension funds and other corporate owners have spent only a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars they could invest in farmland, but they are definitely kicking the tires on potential purchases.

Carbon credits and net-zero pledges are fuelling a new round of farmland buying by billionaires and pension funds that will undermine real climate action.

While farmers across Europe protest high costs and foreign competition, agribusiness investors continue to fortify their positions in the Spanish and European agricultural sector.

Across the Midwest, well-heeled outside investors are on the prowl to acquire the hard assets of US agribusiness, including farmland.

A campaign by U.S. and Brazilian activists challenging TIAA and other financial firms’ complicity in land grabs and deforestation in Brazil is scoring major victories.

The elite university has quietly become one of the largest owners of farmland in the world, according to a new report by GRAIN, an international nonprofit supporting small farmers, and Brazil-based Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos

As the world’s population swells beyond seven billion and emerging markets’ appetite for food grows, Canadian institutions are getting increasingly hungry for agribusiness and farmland acquisitions abroad.

An influx of foreign funds seeking Australian farmland has pushed lawmakers to consider legislation that would increase scrutiny of overseas purchases after foreign ownership of land almost doubled since 1984.

Russia’s VTB Capital plans $1bn agriculture fund which will begin by buying assets in Russia and Kazakhstan – from land to processing companies.

There is something amazingly patronising in the way Payne claims that Emergent has ‘adopted’ a Mozambican village of 3,000 people and hired its citizens to clear 2,000 acres of land to farm it with her firm.

Rising demand for agricultural commodities has led to a ‘land grab’ in some of the world’s poorest countries. The International Bar Associaiton assesses the legal implications and the prospects for the developing world.

After acquiring majority ownership in the PHC plantations from European development banks in 2020, former partners have turned on each other with legal action underway across four jurisdictions for control of the company, valued at US$100 million.

Area nearly the size of France purchased, leased for food production around the world Africa, South America, parts of Europe targeted by cash-rich, food-poor nations

With their huge populations, China and India exert an unparalleled force on world food markets. They are looking abroad as it becomes more difficult for them to be self-sufficient -- and the increasing demand often has disastrous consequences across the globe.

“Every day I field calls from potential investors, from pension funds, from family businesses that want to buy” from inside and outside Canada, said Doug Emsley, president of Assiniboia Capital Corp.

At an agriculture investment summit in London on Wednesday, leading U.S. and European pensions funds said few assets remained immune from whipsawing markets, prompting institutions to look at farmland.

The fund, which will invest in commercial agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa, has dual-purpose - to ensure returns in the range of 15-20 per cent, while the investment helps to create jobs and give rural Africans the chance to help themselves out of poverty. Currently, cru has significant exposure to commercial agriculture in Malawi with over 2,500 hectares of land under its own control and another 4,000 hectares in outgrower schemes.

Small-holder farmers hold key to Africa's food security, but are often excluded from debates on agricultural investments.