Australia

The investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has bought a fourth major Aussie cropping aggregation.

A venture backed by Canada’s PSP Investments has bought out its co-investors in the Kooba aggregation in New South Wales, which has 30,000 hectares of cotton, crops and livestock and 1,400 hectares of almond orchards.

New Agriculture manages the Lawson Grains portfolio on behalf of its investor, Canadian pension fund Alberta Investment Management Corporation, or AIMCo.

The Ghana Green Guard USD$25 billion climate futures initiative is a public-private collaborative partnership that will generate over 305 million carbon credits across 12 million hectares with projects based on reforestation, regenerative agriculture and other activities.

Al Gore-backed private equity firm Just Climate has secured its first round of funding from two major global investors to begin investing in solutions aimed at reducing agricultural emissions.

The Utah-based Mormon Church has added a large-scale dryland cropping operation in the renowned Golden Triangle region of northern New South Wales to its growing Australian agricultural portfolio.

A global commodities trader and carbon player, part-owned by funds giant Brookfield, is quitting a 450,000-hectare Northern Territory cattle station where it hoped to set up an offset scheme, amid confusion and delays over new carbon rules.

The famed Consolidated Pastoral Company, now owned by English financier Guy Hands, has bought Australia’s biggest sheep station Rawlinna after it was put on the block when tycoon Andrew Forrest last year dumped plans to buy it for a renewable energy project.

Australia-based Costa Group has launched a new blueberry farming project on the Bolaven Plateau in Laos, starting with 17 hectares of crops at Paksong.

Australian agricultural asset manager Warakirri has announced it is targeting a $500m-plus expansion into the dairy farming sector via a new trans-Tasman investment fund.

The Warakirri Diversified Agriculture Fund invests in agricultural assets on behalf of Australian, Canadian and European pension funds, as well as high net-worth individuals and private family offices.

Japan's No.2 crude oil refiner, Idemitsu Kosan, will begin a trial plantation of the non-edible oilseed tree crop Pongamia in Australia to assess its potential as a feedstock for aviation fuel, in cooperation with the US company Terviva.