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.

Glencore Plc agreed to sell just-under a 10 percent stake in its agriculture unit to Canada’s British Columbia Investment Management Corp. for $624.9 million in cash as it continues to cut debt.

Background note to accompany a joint press release on the Kenyan government finding Karuturi Global Ltd guilty of tax evasion

Land ownership concentration and big money are forcing farmers to clear their lands in order to keep up in the Canada's Saskatchewan Province.

A coalition of environmental, human rights and family farm organizations delivered a letter with over 100,000 signatures to pension fund management company TIAA, expressing concerns over the company’s investments in farmland and palm oil.

US-based Aslan Global Management, a leader in the "patient capital" movement, manages more than 12,000 hectares of farmland in Ukraine and Mozambique on long-term lease and just entered into a 99-year lease for 45,000 hectares in Tanzania.

Large institutional investors are pouring capital into global agricultural markets, and Australia has been a key target.

Swedish pension fund AP Fonden 2 has invested $750 million to TIAA-CREF Global Agriculture II, confirming rumours that the pension was one of three foreign investors contributing to the vehicle’s $1.4 billion fundraise.

UK pensions funds and asset management companies potentially have up to £37 billion invested in ‘land grabs’ worldwide, according to a report published by Friends of the Earth.

Investors snap up California acreage, pushing prices to record highs, as global appetites for almonds and pistachios increase.

As the global financial downturn pushes investors into finding alternative business ventures, land investment has become an attractive proposition.

So many Wall Street-types crammed the Waldorf Astoria in New York City last week for a global farmland and agribusiness conference that hosts warned the crowd of 600 not to block the fire exits.

Agribusiness and global investors are scooping up farmland. Are corporate farmers the new colonialists? asks BusinessWeek

"Money is still being pumped into the sector almost regardless of geography," says director of Primer International.

Tim Hornibrook, head of Macquarie Agricultural Funds Management, obtained sensitive details about a competitor's profits, fee structure and returns by posing as a wealthy investor.

There is growing interest from international investors in the New Zealand agricultural sector, particularly from wealthy Europeans, boutique funds manager Mint Asset Management says.

A $50 million commitment was made to ACM Permanent Crops, a fund managed by Agriculture Capital Management that seeks “superior value creation from vertically integrated, sustainable farming.”

Australian Farms Fund Management sells a 40% stake to Melbourne-based Lempriere Capital, the agricultural investment management group that partnered with China's Shandong to purchase the Cubbie Station cotton farm.

Debates around farmland acquisition have focused mostly on how the phenomenon is playing out in the Global South. Much less attention has been paid to large-scale acquisitions of farmland in wealthier countries like Canada.

GRAIN says the World Bank's much anticipated report on the global farmland grab is both a disappointment and a failure.

A major loan was approved this week for an industrial food producer operating in Brazil, despite concerns that the money would ultimately fund activities that contribute to deforestation.

Global demand for agricultural land has increased 14-fold since the 2008 spike in global food prices. With that comes increasing cases of land grab, violence, and force eviction. Why every actor that could have prevent that is becoming increasingly powerless to do so.

There is "a wall of money" looking for a home in agricultural investments worldwide, say managers for BlackRock's London-based World Agriculture Fund.

Jeremy Grantham of US asset management firm, Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo and Company (GMO), says global investors should have 30% of their portfolios exposed to natural resources, with half of that in forestry and farmland, to take advantage of the growing global food crisis. That is double today's averages.

The World Bank is playing a leading role in a global land grab, says farmers' movement and its international allies.

Husband and wife team founded Emergent Asset Management, which has led controversial farmland acquisitions in southern Africa.

“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.

Head of global investment strategy at HSBC Private Bank says: 'I wouldn’t use the expression land grab. But I would say this is very much something you would invest in on a minimum 10-year horizon.'

At the Global Landscapes Forum Investment Case Symposium land tenure was the primary issue that was repeatedly pointed to by members of the research, development and finance communities alike as the biggest risk for landscape investment.

TIAA-CREF is expected to announce Tuesday that it has raised $3 billion for its second global farmland-investment partnership, exceeding its initial target of $2.5 billion.