PrimeAg Australia has agreed to sell 60 per cent of its land and water portfolio to US financial services organisation TIAA-CREF for up to $126 million.

Describing itself as a consultant and “master distributor” of products designed “to bring working capital to a variety of projects” – including upgrading farmland overseas and forestry –Intelligent Partnership published a 76 page report on the alternatives sector this week.

Of the countries that lost the highest percentages of their cultivated land to land grabs, nine out of 10 have malnourishment rates of 5 percent or more.

In rural Australia, the hyperbole about agriculture as a boom industry for global investors is not translating into practical benefits at the farm gate

Agriculture has scarred some big hitters in the investment world. Many are now wary of a sector that is at the mercy of fickle weather, political risk and quixotic governments.

As institutions and private investors show increased interest in farmland, prices are rising.

New Zealand's state pension fund is looking at buying overseas farmland amid growing demand for food in emerging markets, and it is also interested in assets offered by struggling European banks as well as catastrophe insurance.

Investors snap up California acreage, pushing prices to record highs, as global appetites for almonds and pistachios increase.

Retirement fund and financial services firm TIAA-CREF is helping to meet the growing institutional demand for sustainably managed farmland, which can deliver stable returns above inflation.

The fund house aims to capitalise on Japanese pension plans' growing interest in new investment types, including Asian fixed income and certain alternatives like farmland

Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board is looking to capitalise on favourable growing conditions and access to Asian markets having taken a 30 percent stake in the central North Island's Kaingaroa forestry estate.

A Swedish pension fund has become the latest of a series of purchasers of Australian farmland, a buying spree which has fuelled public concerns, and raised discussion over curbs on foreign ownership.

Governments, IFIs and corporations are collaborating in major new projects to reorder land and water use and create industrial infrastructure over millions of ha in Africa to ensure sustained supplies of commodities and profits for markets.

TIAA-CREF's Westchester group buys 17,200 ha Cobran Station, once Australia's largest rice farm, while Sweden's Forsta AP-fonden buys the 16,000 ha Merri Meric farm near Henty.

Many of the world’s biggest pension funds as well as family offices of wealthy individuals –looking for diversification and steady returns in times of market volatility– have been pouring money into farmlands, writes Kelvins Tan

Ospraie Management, the famous commodities hedge fund, is still long on farmland because it has actual cash flow. Many pension funds are now buying farmlands, reports Bloomberg.

The results of pension funds’ alternative investments have been passable so far. In the case of farmland, at the end of last year the average total annual return over a 10 year period was more than 10%.

New report from Oakland Institute looks at private equity funds betting heavily on agriculture

Major farmland investors such as banks and pension funds must stop facilitating land grabs, civil society groups on the eve of a global farmland investment conference in London on December 3-5, have said.

Taking tracts of agricultural land is among ways to play the risks of climate change says Baring Asset Management's chief investment officer, Marino Valensise.

Farmland and timberland are now separate asset classes, the UK's Pension Protection Fund has asserted in its revised investment principles.

The proportion of PPF's £12bn portfolio of assets allocated to farm and timberland will vary over time and depend on the opportunities available now and in the future.

For all the willing buyers seeking tracts of Australian farm land, local investors are not among them. They wonder what all the fuss is about.

Continued economic uncertainties are prompting a back-to-the-land movement among investors. And a favored choice of land is farmland.

Africa is regarded as the New Eldorado, and is attracting many foreign based private or public investment companies, sovereign wealth funds and even pension funds gradually. Sadly, while foreigners continue to play a major role in growth investments, African pension funds' contributions to this growth are dismal.

The Mozambiqan government has marked the northern Niassa province to promote commercial, large-scale tree plantations. Currently, the single biggest plantation in the region comprises of 13,000 hectares of eucalyptus and pine, owned by a company called ‘Chikweti Forests of Niassa.’

On October 9th 2012, the Finnish solidary network Kepa held a discussion on the effects of large-scale land investments or "land grabs" in the Global South.

A slide show by GRAIN that profiles some of those who have been most actively pursuing or supporting farmland grabs around the world.

MetLife Inc, the largest US life insurer, started a business to make agricultural loans in Brazil as insurers expand in developing markets and seek investments to boost income with interest rates near record lows.

Après le groupe Louis Dreyfus, le deuxième plus gros investisseur français dans les terres agricoles se nomme Vincent Bolloré.