We naively believed that collaboration with farmland investor NCH Capital would be our opportunity for honest business in Ukraine. The complete opposite turned out to be true.
- Baltic Course
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09 July 2020
London-based Stafford Capital Partners has raised €12m from three European pension funds towards its soon-to-be-launched follow-up to its Australian farmland fund.
- IPE Real Assets
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22 June 2020
You’d be surprised to learn that the billion dollar barons of Australian farmland are a Canadian government worker super fund, a New York teacher insurance fund and an Australian pastoral giant backed by a Dutch pension fund
Hewitt Cattle Australia, a joint partner of Canadian pension fund – Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments), has listed its Mt. Cooper aggregation in Northern Queensland for sale.
Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard joins international civil society groups to shed light on HMC’s morally repugnant land investments
Controversial hedge fund tycoon Crispin Odey invested more than US$170m into one of Brazil’s most damaging agribusinesses despite it deforesting large areas and receiving numerous environmental fines
- Global Witness
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07 May 2020
Macquarie-backed Viridis Ag has bulked up its national broadacre cropping portfolio, buying a 356-hectare property in Belubula Valley, amid a steady stream of blue-chip farming deals in Australia.
World Bank and IMF policies have provided key support for the financialisation of food and agriculture, resulting in landgrabs, price volatility, the concentration of power and the expansion of climate-damaging industrial agriculture
Large institutional investors are pouring capital into global agricultural markets, and Australia has been a key target.
- IPE Real Assets
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06 April 2020
This report highlights nearly 700 organizations that are investing in food and agriculture globally in a sector that had over $131 billion in Assets Under Management in 2019.
Odey Asset Management is understood to have sizeable stake in Brazilian agribusiness firm SLC Agricola which is linked to deforestation in the Amazon.
Posco International’s new zero deforestation policy comes after years of pressure from NGOs and the divestment of its shares by Dutch and Norwegian pension funds.
In the next decade, 400 million acres of U.S. farmland will change hands. A land justice advocate sees a timely opportunity to counteract entrenched income inequality and systemic racism.
- Civil Eats
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24 February 2020
Daybreak Cropping, a partnership between Warakirri Asset Management and the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board, paid $97 million for the 22,000 ha broadacre farm.
- The Standard
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21 February 2020
CRR’s sustainability analysis shows that deforestation and fires have taken place on TIAA’s farmland portfolio in Brazil, enabling negative social impacts on local communities.
Ukrainians are concerned that cash-flush foreigners could snap up one of Ukraine’s agricultural lands, leaving many of the country’s 41 million people forced to work for others on the soil they once owned.
- Bloomberg
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17 December 2019
NGOs from Korea and Indonesia file OECD complaint against POSCO International for causing palm oil abuses
PSP Investments has been doubling down on capital commitments in Australia’s ag sector – and particularly in almonds and water recently.
A Canadian pension fund has bought a huge parcel of Australian permanent water rights for $490M to irrigate almond trees, in a move that puts the spotlight on foreign ownership of farms and water resources as drought ravages the country.
The acquisition of the Turnbull properties takes spending by TIAA's Nuveen subsidiary on Australia's northern NSW cropping country to almost $50 million in the last 12 months.
With fires on their Cerrado properties, Harvard’s and TIAA’s deforestation exposure appears to be growing.
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.
- INvestable Universe
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31 October 2019
Altamiran Ribeiro, a Brazilian land rights activist, told an audience at John Hopkins University about the land takeovers on behalf of corporations in Brazil and the long-term consequences on local communities and the environment.
- John Hopkins Newsletter
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25 October 2019
Satellite maps show the connection between Harvard and TIAA's farmland acquisitions in Brazil's Cerrado and the massive number of fires that have been burning in the region since July of this year.
- FOE US, GRAIN,NFFC, Rede Social
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22 October 2019
Europe’s biggest pension fund manager is set to expand its Asia portfolio "primarily with additions of co-investments, joint-ventures and investor-led platforms with a focus on farmland and timberland".
- Asian Investor
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21 October 2019
Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment Board has made another move to deepen its presence in Australian agriculture, taking full ownership of the largest irrigated farmer in Australia.
Canadian fund manager PSP Investments, a public service pension fund, has put in an offer for Australia's Webster farms, including their water entitlements, that values the diversified agribusiness at $854 million
- N Queensland Register
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03 October 2019
The Vermont Pension Investment Committee has invested $100 million in the Nuveen Global Farmland Fund, which aims to make farmland acquisitions averaging $20m across the US, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Poland, Romania and Chile.
- PI Online
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02 October 2019
Auditors wrote down the value of Harvard's Brazil farm project by about $200 million after the endowment decided to exit the development in 2017, according to documents filed in a lawsuit.
- Bloomberg
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24 September 2019
New investigation by Global Witness uncovers more than 300 banks and investors back six of the world’s most harmful agribusinesses to the tune of $44bn.
- Global Witness
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23 September 2019