Financial services group TIAA-CREF said it is partnering with Canadian and European money managers to form a $2 billion global farmland investing company to capitalize on the growing demand for grains and other agricultural products.

La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec se lance à son tour dans la déferlante d’investissements des fonds de retraite dans les terres agricoles.

On the evening of April 24, following a daylong rally against large-scale land investment deals in poor nations, the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Manhattan became the venue for a 30-minute light show against land grabs in Africa.

Sixty years on, controversial agricultural projects are back in fashion in Africa and other parts of the developing world as investors - from foreign governments to wealthy individuals - hunt for land to grow food.

A global food crisis and rapid population growth are making farmland an increasingly attractive investment. Holly Black looks at the options.

"During my research trips in Africa, I came across posters against the land grab deals," Liberti told IPS. "One said: ‘Future generations will damn your graves, because you did not leave them any land.’"

The World Bank is playing a leading role in a global land grab, says farmers' movement and its international allies.

A policy paper will next week be presented to the annual World Bank conference on land and poverty in Washington DC in the United States, which focuses on the confrontation between peasant producers and investors in the Mozambican province of Zambezia.

India, which doesn’t allow corporate farming domestically, has joined the growing list of countries going overseas to look for food security.

While agricultural land has the potential to provide a source of long term fixed income, the hurdles are enormous. Extreme illiquidity and sensitivity to geo-political risk mean that diversification of holdings and careful selection are key.

The UN has proposed that countries set limits on the size of agriculture land sales to regulate the growing trend of so-called farmland grabs.

The BT Pension Scheme has acknowledged that investing in agriculture land was a "real challenge" due to concerns over accusations of land grabbing.

PKA has defended its investments in African agricultural land, denying they are ethically dubious or constitute "land grabbing".

A global scramble for land and mineral resources fuelled by billions of investment dollars is threatening the last remaining wilderness and critical ecosystems, destroying communities and contaminating huge volumes of fresh water.

The scariest aspect of this unfolding phenomenon is that despite the foreseeable terrible consequences, the appetite among the rich countries to own a piece of this developing-country fertile land continues to grow, turning to an ugly competition.

Debates around farmland acquisition have focused mostly on how the phenomenon is playing out in the Global South. Much less attention has been paid to large-scale acquisitions of farmland in wealthier countries like Canada.

New data set documens 416 recent, large-scale land grabs by foreign investors for the production of food crops, covering nearly 35 million hectares of land in 66 countries.

A new report by Greenomics Indonesia documents how the Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate threatens peatland and forest in Papua province, Indonesia.

Jose Minaya of TIAA-CREF talks about growing investor interest in farmland and the role of farmland in the pension fund's investment strategy.

The £9bn Pension Protection Fund is set to add specialist farmland and timberland fund managers to its investment manager panel to assist its alternative investment programme.

Canada could soon get its first exchange-traded farmland management stock.

Aucun aménagement à la marge de ces politiques ne saurait contenir la rapacité des investisseurs, publics ou privés : c’est la logique néolibérale qui les sous-tend qu’il faut combattre, au moyen de mobilisations populaires

Foreign investors have spent a record $12 billion buying up Australian farmland and agricultural businesses over the past year, but have put off investing a further $14 billion until the outcome of a Senate inquiry in March 2012, a new report by Ferrier Hodgson says.

Tony Hales, managing director of Stadia Trustees, puts forward the case for including farmland in clients’ self-invested personal pensions (UK)

Right now, on the desks of Swedish International Development Agency (Sida) there is the background material for an application of credit guarantee for an 8000 ha sugar plantation and a refinery in Bagamoyo, Tanzania.

"The whole mess in Europe at the moment has increased demand for diversification products for the Asian markets," says Aquila CEO Roman Rosslenbroich, including farmland.

Swedish pensions money is threatening the livelihoods of small farming communities in Brazil and risk speeding up the devastation of the rainforest.

In the acceptance speech for the 2011 ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’, GRAIN demands an immediate end to land grabbing and a restitution of lands to local communities.

De investeringen van pensioenfonds ABP in Mozambique hebben de afgelopen jaren bijgedragen aan het afpakken van boerenland en het bedreigen van de voedselzekerheid van de lokale bevolking.

The following report, by independent researcher Anna Bolin, explores the global trends and influences at work behind agriculture mega-projects like MIFEE in Papua.