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.

One of Canada's largest pension funds, the Public Sector Pension Investment Board, has made its first rural land purchase in Australia through central Queensland's Hewitt Cattle Company.

A new report from the Oakland Institute, reveals that several well-known pension funds, trusts and endowments are invested in a group of oil palm plantations in the Democratic Republic of Congo accused of environmental and human rights abuses.

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

The Swiss association of the largest public pension funds, has decided to exclude shares in the French group Bolloré SE. The exclusion is justified by “potential human rights violations in Liberia, Cambodia and Sierra Leone”.

Sweden’s AP2 and UK local authority funds are among the backers of a new $3bn global agriculture fund.

AP Pension, the Danish labour-market pensions provider, has hit out at media reports that its chief executive quit in December because of pressure from the supervisory board to invest in the agricultural sector.

Denmark's PKA has invested DKK250m (€33.5m) in African agriculture via the Silverland private equity fund (a SilvertStreet Capital fund)

UK local government pension schemes-backed Stafford Carbon Offsets Opportunities Fund has invested $60m to acquire degraded pastureland in south-western Brazil and made a $12m investment in three properties totalling 1,914ha in New Zealand.

Global institutional investors, led by Canadian pension funds, are piling into the sector, a trend mirroring growing allocations to the farming and related rural sectors worldwide.

Created specifically for domestic and offshore institutional investors, the fund has already secured significant cornerstone funding from one of the largest pension funds in Europe

Australian farmland is an appealing asset class to Canadian-backed investment group, Warakirri Asset Management, with the firm having launched a new fund which expects to raise $500 million.

New animated video shows how a global farmland fund, managed by US financial giant TIAA-CREF, used a complex company structure to avoid restrictions on foreign investment in farmland in Brazil.

Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board, got a green light to buy a medium-sized New Zealand dairy farm and a neighbouring dairy support block in Canterbury for $17.7 million just ahead of tougher requirements on land sales to foreign buyers.

Un nouveau rapport du Oakland Institute dénonce le financement par plusieurs fondations, fonds de pension et trusts internationaux d’une société de plantations de palmiers à huile en RDC

In April 2021, the Netherlands-based Kempen Capital Management (Kempen) launched the SDG Farmland Fund – a new investment solution to offer institutional investors global access to farmland as an asset class.

Legendary waterfront warrior Chris Corrigan could soon have one of the world’s top investors — Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board — as the main shareholder in his Australian listed agricultural company, Webster Limited.

Saskatchewan’s move to freeze purchases of farmland by pension plans and foreign investors has ignited a debate over what’s best for the future of Canada’s bread basket.

In order to apply for a licence from the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority, private equity owned SanLei Premium Trout had to show how local communities would benefit. But the Catchment Resilience Fund initiative seems to have crumbled after less than a year.

The new Luxembourg-registered Sustainable Resources Fund boasts anticipated potential returns of at least 15% per annum on forestry, agriculture, biomass and land.

The Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana has approved a $50m commitment to PGIM’s US agriculture fund.

The $128 billion Washington State Investment Board is considering investing up to $250 million in the IFC Core Farmland Fund – an open-ended vehicle focused on investing in U.S. farming operations

As PrimeAg Australia's $125 million sale of rural properties to US fund manager TIAA-CREF goes through, the question now being raised by investors is what will happen to the residual portfolio.

New York-based hedge fund Water Asset Management LLC spent $100 million to buy farmland and water rights in Western Arizona, stirring concerns about a future “water grab” from that rural area and of corporate control over a major groundwater source.

Sweden’s SEK227.3bn (€26.7bn) state buffer fund Andra AP-fonden (AP2) has been accused of a lack of transparency and snapping up cheap agricultural land in Brazil by campaign group Swedwatch. AP2 denies the allegations.

Norway’s US$710bn sovereign investment fund has pulled its investment from 23 Southeast Asian palm oil companies, claiming that they source palm oil unsustainably.

Norway’s US$1 trillion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, has pulled out of more than 33 palm oil companies over deforestation risks over the last seven years

DanChurchAid, CARE Denmark and MS calls for more transparency of pension investments in African agriculture.

For almost ten years, AP Pension has bought farms for DKK 700 million. Now the private equity fund Erhvervsinvest will take over the administration and "develop" the portfolio.

This investment marks the US pension’s first investment in farmland, and in its first in Homestead.