US

Pension funds and other corporate owners have spent only a tiny fraction of the billions of dollars they could invest in farmland, but they are definitely kicking the tires on potential purchases.

Venture capitalists, merchant bankers and large conglomerates are all piling in.

There is a lot of focus on the growing global population and what it means for food demand. One result sees investors taking notice of returns on resources that provide food, including farmland.

More than 613,000 hectares of Australia's NSW's agricultural land is owned by UK-based investors, compared with 227,300 ha owned by Korean interests and 55,560 ha by US investors.

Farmland investments may return 8 percent to 12 percent annually as global food demand increases, said the largest US pensions manager for teachers and academic researchers with $469 billion of assets.

Bloomberg's Alan Katz reports on Morgan Stanley's farming venture on the steppes of Ukraine which it abandoned in July 2009. The failed gamble demonstrates how Wall Street firms, in the last gasp of a debt-fueled bull market, strayed further from their traditional businesses to embrace diverse projects with unfamiliar risks.

In Brazil, government surveys found foreigners owned 10% of the nation's cultivated land. Much of that was funds with international backing in London or New York.

Black River Capital Partners Fund (Food) LP, a fund managed by the private equity arm of US agribusiness and trading giant Cargill, has offered to acquire 28.11 percent of Philippine fruit and vegetable grower AgriNurture Inc. for $30.4 million.

CDC, the UK’s development finance institution, today announced a US$20m investment in farming businesses in Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Uganda

With investors from the Middle East and the U.S., Africa Atlantic Farms is pursuing mechanised farming on 10,000 hectares it has leased in Ghana in the Afram Plains region, with plans to expand.

At the current stage, we do not have adequately available evidence to consider either HMC or Emergent at fault for the purported economic wrongdoings outlined in the Oakland Institute report.

Groups urge people in the US and Canada to take action on land grabbing.