Farmland has become the darling of alternative investing, sending hedge funds and wealthy investors into bidding wars for plots of land once deemed ordinary. And it is not just big money getting in on the game. From Stockholm to Chicago to Vancouver, ordinary investor money is pouring into fields around the world.

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.

The idea of combining the greed of investors with the fight against hunger as a mutually beneficial business venture has failed miserably

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.

PensionDanmark har investeret over en halv milliard i afrikansk landsbrugsjord. Pensionsselsskabet forudser, at Afrika bliver den næste store vækstregion.

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.

Investigation uncovers how Harvard University's endowment is involved in a violent case of land grabbing, covering 140,000 ha in the Brazilian state of Bahia.

The co-founder of Microsoft and his wife rank as the largest private farmland owners in the US, with over 242,000 acres across the country.

Pambazuka News spoke to Anuradha Mittal, Jeff Furman and Frederic Mousseau about what prompted their research on large-scale investments in land in Africa and what they discovered.

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.

Foreign speculators are increasing price volatility and supply insecurity in the global food system, according to a series of investigative reports released today by the Oakland Institute.

European Union (EU) corporate and financial entities involved in land grabbing may be implicated in a variety of human rights abuses.

This report highlights nearly 700 organizations that are investing in food and agriculture globally in a sector that had over $131 billion in Assets Under Management in 2019.

“There are people that are dying to invest large sums of money to acquire farmland in Canada that aren't Canadian citizens,” says Jan Kaminski, founder of Bonnefield.

Land grabs in Canada have not been well-documented. Provinces do not keep inventory on large-scale land acquisitions. This blind eye approach has some people, particularly farmers, worried.

The $23.6 billion Iowa Public Employees’ Retirement System and the $600 million Tucson Supplemental Retirement System are currently exploring potential investments in farmland as a means of diversification.

Profiteering companies are lining up to buy water rights in the western US as the water supply dwindles.

Fossil Fuel Divest Harvard joins international civil society groups to shed light on HMC’s morally repugnant land investments

Friends of the Earth warns investors they could be unknowingly contributing to deforestation and land grabs, and calls on them to show leadership

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

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.

Karoll Capital Management, the country's largest landlord after the government, sees continuing prospects for farmland investment in Bulgaria

Mr Rosslenbroich is particularly enthusiastic about agriculture, where he says Aquila has “teams travelling the world looking for farms”, with New Zealand dairy farms a speciality.

Communities living close to oil palm plantations run by PHC in the northeast of the Democratic Republic of Congo are laying claim to just over 58,000 ha of land, and are demanding access to the company’s land titles to determine the boundaries of its concessions.

Foreign ownership of American land has gained a lot of buzz lately, but senior staff attorney and professor with the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at Vermont Law and Graduate School, Fran Miller says more attention should go to domestic corporate ownership.

There are countless examples of governments handing it over at bargain prices to foreign investors, ranging from hedge funds to biofuel producers.

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

Investors are thinking big when it comes to farmland purchases, reports Andrew Shirley in Knight Frank's Wealth Report 2011

It is not too late for equitable partnerships to flourish between foreign investors and local communities.

"We're in the beginning stages of what could be a significant shift in land ownership," said Madeleine Fairbairn, who is investigatiing the impacts on farmers of institutional investment in U.S. farmland.