As a relatively new and untapped asset class, farmland remains mysterious to some insitutional investors. Greg Bright spoke to Charmion McBride, chief operating officer, global farmland, at Insight Investment in the UK.

"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

Alberta pension fund pays $415 million for more than 1500 square miles of forest in Australia to be converted to timber plantations and agriculture.

Brookfield will invest in Brazilian properties primarily comprised of pasture land that may be converted to higher-and-better uses, including soybean, corn and sugarcane production

Finding suitable farmland investment vehicles is not as easy as one might think.

Real asset investments held by the fund include farmland and natural resources.

Saskatchewan has some of the richest and least expensive farmland in the world, and there's a gigantic pool of global money that would like to buy up as much of it as they can.

Global investment funds have sunk as much as $20-billion (U.S.) into farmland, last year alone they bought 111 million acres of farmland.

“There are people that are dying to invest large sums of money to acquire farmland in Canada that aren't Canadian citizens,” says Jan Kaminski, founder of Bonnefield.

Bankers and fund managers are scrambling to build up rural expertise in response to rocketing investor demand to buy entire farms as an inflation hedge.

Investment managers in the US report rising interest from pension schemes and retail investors in funds that buy and run farmland in developed countries.

Wary of fluctuations on Wall Street, more wealthy Americans, private funds and foreigners are putting money into parcels of cornfields, fruit orchards and other US agricultural products.

UNCTAD believes pension funds, with their apparent focus on reputation, accountability, and the long term, could set new best-practice standards as they join the farmland investment trend.

It is not too late for equitable partnerships to flourish between foreign investors and local communities.

With the surge of corporate farms in Argentina and Brazil over the past two to three years, I thought it would be useful to compile a list of the biggest groups with a short description of each.

Hedge funds and bankers are buying everything from farmland to mines across the Global South. Mark L Thomas looks at how speculators here fuel exploitation half a world away

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

TIAA-CREF owns agricultural land in the US, Australia, Brazil and central and Eastern Europe, most of which is leased out.

Pension funds are deepening their commitment to farmland, upping investments by billions of dollars and moving to active strategies, as a hedge against potential inflation and to diversifty from riskier investments.

SilverStreet is scouting for commercial farms in five countries — Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

Brazilian farm companies are in a race of investments with every major company making new acquisitions and major capital investments.

Karoll Capital Management, the country's largest landlord after the government, sees continuing prospects for farmland investment in Bulgaria

Vaughan-Smith and his team of seven professionals are scouting for commercial farms in five countries — Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia — where conditions are deemed to be the most favorable.

"The ONLY place where agriculture businesses and investors come together to discuss farmland investment" says the promoters

We believe that farmland, and agriculture generally, will shortly move beyond the ‘acceptable’ in the eyes of the world’s investment management community and become a core product.

In Brazil, El Tejar and others are investing in ownership and hope to capture land appreciation. BrasilAgro brags that it sold one farm for a gain of 116 percent in just 17 months.

Wall Street financiers now interested in channeling billions of new dollars into cropland include heavy hitters like UBS, Morgan Stanley and Rabobank.

Cargill and Bunge among firms setting up funds to buy farms in Asia and South America.

Mr Rosslenbroich is particularly enthusiastic about agriculture, where he says Aquila has “teams travelling the world looking for farms”, with New Zealand dairy farms a speciality.

Agriculture is suddenly on every end investor’s radar, and many are dipping their toes in the water through pure farmland investment.