À la veille de la réunion annuelle des banques publiques de développement à Rome, 280 groupes de 70 pays ont signé une lettre dénonçant leur financement de l'expansion de l'agriculture industrielle, de la destruction de l'environnement et du contrôle du système alimentaire par les entreprises.

On the eve of an annual gathering of public development banks, 280 groups from 70 countries sign letter slamming them for bankrolling the expansion of industrial agriculture.

An Auckland property developer is involved in a company linked to carrying out deforestation in Indonesia, where virgin rainforest is being bulldozed to grow palm oil plantations.

New Forests and Alberta Investment Management Corporation have agreed to buy Lawson Grains, which owns a 90,500 hectare agricultural land estate across New South Wales and Western Australia.

Australia’s second-biggest farmland investor has sold its Lawson Grains portfolio comprising 105,000 hectares of crop land in NSW and Western Australia to Sydney-based global forestry investment manager New Forests and Canada’s Alberta Investment Management Corporation.

Major Brazilian meatpacker Minerva Foods and part-owner Saudi Arabia's SALIC have bought two sheep-focused meat processors in Western Australia for almost $48 million with plans to expand their operations.

A controlling interest in the Murray River Land Trust Portfolio of about 15,000ha "owned, contracted and optioned land" near Strathmerton has been taken by a private equity firm.

Investment platform iPartners is pushing into the agricultural sector, launching a $20 million fund to acquire Australian farmland for protected koala habitat to generate returns through its use as a biodiversity offset.

CBRE Agribusiness managing director David Goodfellow says large institutional buyers have a head start on family businesses.

Agriculture, long overlooked as a handy defensive investment space by fund managers more interested in infrastructure, commercial real estate and shopping centres, has become the focus of big spending activity of late.

Global investment company Proterra Investment Partners is divesting its Australian farm portfolio – the Corinella Group Pty Ltd consisting of 49 farms across southeastern Australia with expectations of fetching A$350 million.

An Australian cattle farm was used by Chinese-owned company United World Enterprises to lure retirees into investing up to $46 million for fake agritourism and aged-care village schemes.

An Australian company backed by Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board has purchased a grain farm in Yuna, Australia for about $30 million

SALIC owns a whopping aggregation in Western Australia, Merredin Farms, which produces grain and livestock over 211,000 hectares and grows around 120,000 tonnes of grain alone each year.

PSP, one of Canada's largest pension investment managers, now adds a further 40,000 hectares to its large farmland holdings in New South Wales.

Complex web of data reveals large swathes of country controlled by small number of billionaires and large companies

The newly merged entity in Victoria, Australia will include more than 500 hectares of orchards, water rights, two packing houses and additional land.

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.

Chinese dairy company engaged in alfalfa growing, dairy farming, milk processing, and marketing will use KKR funds to construct more dairy farms and import Australian dairy cows.

An unnamed European pension fund has become the cornerstone investor in the just-launched, close-ended Warakirri Farmland Fund, which aims to raise up to €320m in equity.

An Australian family, backed by one of South Africa's richest men, has bought its sixth Northern Territory cattle property, acquiring Larrizona Station for $17 million.

A Senegalese judge finds no evidence of alleged corruption over the sale of gas contracts to British energy giant BP, an affair suspected of possible links to Senhuile agibusiness project

Bullish returns from farmland investments are likely to falter in 2021 because of Australia's increasingly prickly trade relationship with our huge agricultural export customer, China.

Foreign ownership of farmland in some states has surged to as high as 25 per cent as China maintains its position as Australia's most powerful foreign investor.

Macquarie Group's $300 million takeover bid for a real estate investment trust, which owns vast farms across Australia, could pave the way for more farming deals involving the investment banking powerhouse and the fresh food giant Costa Group.

Macquarie Group, one of the world’s largest alternative asset managers, has announced that one of its agricultural funds will seek to acquire all of the issued securities in Australian listed farmland REIT Vitalharvest

American pension fund giant TIAA sold its Southern Riverina farming aggregation between Wagga Wagga and Albury in southern NSW to local Australian farmers after more than a decade of ownership.

The sale includes just under 300,000 head of cattle, nine pastoral leases across the Northern Territory and Queensland totalling around 3.2 million hectares, and a 90 per cent stake in a feedlot business in Indonesia.

Australia’s largest dairy operation, Tasmania’s historic Van Diemen’s Land Company, is reportedly on the verge of being offloaded by its Chinese businessman owner Xianfeng Lu.

The $56.5 billion Harvard University Endowment Fund is preparing to sell another chunk of its Australian almond and cotton holdings after putting the Western Rosella Farming portfolio in the NSW Riverina on the market.