In debate over large scale investments in agriculture in Australia, there are some broader issues about foreign investment that don’t seem to get talked about enough.

A delegation of peasants from Niassa recently travelled to The Netherlands and met lawmakers, students and investors in the Chikweti plantations, including the Dutch national pension fund ABP, the biggest investor in the project.

Foreigners are buying up prime agricultural land, but proposed legislation could curtail the booming trade.

Since Jane Mendillo took over the endowment in July 2008, Harvard’s holdings of forests, farms and other natural resources in Brazil as well as in New Zealand and Romania have grown to about 10 percent of the portfolio -- more than $3 billion -- and she wants to add more.

Colliers International estimates about A$4 billion is currently being raised for funds to invest in Australian agriculture, including PrimeAg’s raising of A$125 million in cash for a controversial unlisted A$250 million agriculture fund with Australia’s Future Fund.

It is understood the agricultural division of the $163 billion Canada Pension Plan Investment Board has been sniffing around Australian agricultural land recently and has had discussions in Australia with landholders such as PrimeAg.

Jusqu’à maintenant, les efforts déployés pour réglementer les accaparements de terres étaient le fait des institutions internationales. Maintenant, le secteur privé s’engage à définir ses propres règles du jeu.

From the World Bank to pension funds, efforts are under way to regulate land grabs through the creation of codes and standards. Rather than help financial and corporate elites to "responsibly invest" in farmland, we need them to stop and divest.

Joe Azelby, JP Morgan’s head of Global Real Assets, is seeing a structural shift in many institutional portfolios toward real assets, including farmland.

Jeremy Grantham of US asset management firm, Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo and Company (GMO), says global investors should have 30% of their portfolios exposed to natural resources, with half of that in forestry and farmland, to take advantage of the growing global food crisis. That is double today's averages.

HighQuest Partners in the US say that between 65-80 million hectares of additional land is going to have to be brought into production, globally, within the next 10 years and that this means more foreign farmland investment.

Investors are honing the focus of their cash on real assets including farmland, timber, mines and energy projects, which are less correlated to financial markets.

Investors from Canada and the Netherlands have almost half of all foreign forest and farmland holdings in the USA. The Canadian holdings reflect investment by timber companies, while the Dutch holdings reflect pension fund investments.

Drought conditions in much of the US this year could turn into a boon, rather than a bust, for institutional investors in farmland, timber and agricultural stocks.

The £1.9bn pension fund of the UK’s Environment Agency is set to unveil a new investment strategy later this month, including plans to invest in farmland and forestry for the first time.

Passive indices have been replaced by new sophisticated active indices and pension fund managers like APG are investing in natural resources assets, including farmland.

The new Luxembourg-registered Sustainable Resources Fund boasts anticipated potential returns of at least 15% per annum on forestry, agriculture, biomass and land.

Felda Global plans to use the bulk of its proceeds to snap up more plantations in Southeast Asia and Africa and boost its refining and market business in its bid to become a peer to Archer-Daniel Midlands and Cargill by 2020.

At an agriculture investment summit in London on Wednesday, leading U.S. and European pensions funds said few assets remained immune from whipsawing markets, prompting institutions to look at farmland.

Farmland is "an obvious no-brainer choice for most pension funds," according to Savills director of residential research Yolande Barnes.

Joint statement released by more than 60 civil society organisations against the role of pension funds and other financial instutions in land grabbing

International development and environment charities to protest against 'land grab' outside Agriculture Investment Summit

As Europe's debt crisis rattles global equity market confidence farming is being increasingly championed by many as a sound, long-term bet for investors needing a safe haven for their money - particularly superannuation funds.

SLC Agricola, the Brazil farm operator with large ambitions in farmland acquisition, sealed a $239m cash injection from UK fund manager Valiance Asset Management for a business aimed at turning scrub into "high-quality" farms.

The PRI for Farmland are supposed to an opportunity for communities and CSOs to assess the performance of investors in farmland against a set of voluntary standards, but fall short of what’s needed to hold companies properly to account.

A pension fund(!) has seeded(!) a new company (i.e., not a fund!) that will invest its own assets as well as those of peers(!) in actual farms(!) in the developed and developing world!

Investment advisors point to current rise in wheat prices as one more reason to invest in farmland...

The science and environment author discusses a growing global threat

The Financial Times reported this week that TIAA-CREF is developing a new “investment vehicle” that will bet the retirement funds of millions of American on the rising price of farmland around the world.

Indigenous Papuans are reeling from the cut-price sale of the land and forests that are their lifeblood