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18 February 2010There 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.
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14 February 2010There are some 17 private equity funds expecting to invest $2bn-odd in agriculture in Africa in the next two years.
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![Billions more mouths to feed: Funds investing in farmland]( "Billions more mouths to feed: Funds investing in farmland")
13 February 2010Listening to Susan Payne you could be forgiven for thinking land funds are a holy grail for the ethical investor: money-making opportunities with a sanctifying air of do-goodery.
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19 November 2009There’s a whole school of economic thought that says that Collier is wrong, that big is not necessarily better in agriculture — and that the land deals therefore might be unwise not because they’re wrong but because they’re unprofitable.
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31 August 2009"Liquidam as terras africanas. Constrangem milhares de pequenos produtores à miséria. Isto é intolerável. A terra deve continuar a ser um património da comunidade em África", afirma o presidente do comité executivo da Rede das Organizações Camponesas e Produtores Agrícolas da África Ocidental (ROPPA), Ndiogou Fall
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31 August 2009"They are selling off African land for a song," said Ndiogou Fall, president of the executive committee for the Network of Peasant Organizations and Producers in West Africa (ROPPA), which is calling for dialogue between governments, producers and African and foreign investors.
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31 August 2009"On brade les terres africaines. On contraint des milliers de petits producteurs à la misère. Cela est insupportable. La terre doit rester un patrimoine de la communauté en Afrique", affirme ainsi le président du Comité exécutif du Réseau des organisations paysannes et des producteurs agricoles de l'Afrique de l'Ouest (ROPPA), Ndiogou Fall.
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5 August 2009For investors like Susan Payne, the chief executive of Emergent Asset Management, farmland in sub-Saharan Africa is a hot bet.
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30 July 2009Because of the political sensitivity of the modern-day land grab, it is often only the country's head of state who knows the details. Der Spiegel investigates.
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2 July 2009The emergence of the farmland asset class is not without pitfalls with the provision of food always highly political and a tentative global economic recovery potentially threatened by the H1N1 flu pandemic, fund managers said.
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11 May 2009Aimed at public and private market investors, this conference will explore opportunities for global investments in agricultural lands, commodities and infrastructure in North and South America, Australia, China, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
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![‘Agrologistics’ at home and abroad]( "‘Agrologistics’ at home and abroad")
3 May 2009Private equity used to stay away from anything to do with agriculture, put off by the uncontrollable risks of bad climate and natural disasters. And yet in the last three years some big funds have been launched in the agribusiness space, and they are busy trying different ways of mitigating the risks.
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7 October 2008Soaring food prices, supply fears among import-dependent countries and rising demand for biofuels have driven up investment in agricultural land, notably in Africa.
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15 September 2008As with timberland, while direct ownership and management (i.e., being a farmer), is a possibility, such a route is similarly fraught with difficulties. One of the most significant of these is the issue of diversification in the farmland itself - especially with a single investment. A well-diversified holding of farmland (row crop, permanent crop, pasture and even timber) will, therefore, not only require a significant investment, but may also involve land holdings in a number of different locations.
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![Buy into Africa]( "Buy into Africa")
15 August 2008Cru, a small specialist fund management firm, recently launched a Malawi-based fund called Africa Invest. The fund has made an initial investment of £2m in 2,000 hectares of land that’s producing paprika for western supermarkets. With land prices starting at £800 per hectare (compared to £10,000 in the UK) it’s relatively easy to amass large farms that can be upgraded with new technology, mechanisation and better production methods. According to Cru, annual returns on capital should exceed 30 to 40 per cent.
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![Food Is Gold, So Billions Invested in Farming]( "Food Is Gold, So Billions Invested in Farming")
5 June 2008Huge investment funds have already poured hundreds of billions of dollars into booming financial markets for commodities like wheat, corn and soybeans. But a few big private investors are starting to make bolder and longer-term bets that the world’s need for food will greatly increase — by buying farmland, fertilizer, grain elevators and shipping equipment.
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![Hedge funds muck in down on the farm]( "Hedge funds muck in down on the farm")
25 April 2008Hedge funds and investment banks are swapping their Gucci for gumboots as they bet on rising food prices by buying farms.