The global financial crisis may have hit tax-effective agribusiness schemes hard, but the prospects of the small group of companies that survived are anything but gloomy. "We're actually tapping into the new GFC, which is the global food crisis," says Wayne Overall, executive director of agribusiness managed investment scheme operator Almond Investors Limited

The Swedish National Pension Fund is teaming up with US institutional investor TIAA-CREF to buy farmland in Australia.

Protestors have been demonstrating in Geneva against the growth in investments in agriculture that they say endangers food security in many developing countries.

The Second Swedish National Pension Fund (AP2) will invest $250 million in a joint venture with a US pension fund and financial services provider to buy farmland in the United States, Brazil and Australia.

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.

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

That land is far more complex and valuable than plain dirt was one of the central themes of FC Business Intelligence’s “World Agriculture Investment USA” conference in Chicago on May 9-10, 2011. A report from AllAboutAlpha.

Swedish pension buffer fund AP2 and US pension fund manager TIAA-CREF have formed a joint venture to invest at least US$500 million in farmland in the US, Australia and Brazil.

The world’s second-oldest profession–farming–is a hot investment

So many Wall Street-types crammed the Waldorf Astoria in New York City last week for a global farmland and agribusiness conference that hosts warned the crowd of 600 not to block the fire exits.

Pensionskassernes Administration, a Denmark-based fund that manages about $25 billion, plans to invest $370 million in farmland globally, said Jens Henrik Staugaard Johansen, a portfolio manager.

Rural MPs, especially those from NSW and Queensland, have been fielding increasing complaints from constituents in recent months about the level of foreign ownership of Australian farms and agricultural businesses.

Black River's investment pipeline includes a Chinese pork producer and distributor, a duck farming firm in northern China, a fish producer in Costa Rica and a frozen fish processor in Singapore.

Investors are buying Canadian agricultural land, betting that rising food prices, a ballooning global population and growing worldwide scarcities in farmland will mean a payoff for them.

As a relatively new and untapped asset class, farmland remains mysterious to some insitutional investors. Greg Bright spoke to Charmion McBride, chief operating officer, global farmland, at Insight Investment in the UK.

"All of a sudden the world is waking up and saying, 'Wow, emerging markets, food security... this asset class is going to really perform in the medium term -- the next 8-20 years,'" says new convert James Howard, manager of the Futuregrowth Agri-Fund

Alberta pension fund pays $415 million for more than 1500 square miles of forest in Australia to be converted to timber plantations and agriculture.

Brookfield will invest in Brazilian properties primarily comprised of pasture land that may be converted to higher-and-better uses, including soybean, corn and sugarcane production

Finding suitable farmland investment vehicles is not as easy as one might think.

Real asset investments held by the fund include farmland and natural resources.

Saskatchewan has some of the richest and least expensive farmland in the world, and there's a gigantic pool of global money that would like to buy up as much of it as they can.

Global investment funds have sunk as much as $20-billion (U.S.) into farmland, last year alone they bought 111 million acres of farmland.

“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.

Bankers and fund managers are scrambling to build up rural expertise in response to rocketing investor demand to buy entire farms as an inflation hedge.

Investment managers in the US report rising interest from pension schemes and retail investors in funds that buy and run farmland in developed countries.

Wary of fluctuations on Wall Street, more wealthy Americans, private funds and foreigners are putting money into parcels of cornfields, fruit orchards and other US agricultural products.

UNCTAD believes pension funds, with their apparent focus on reputation, accountability, and the long term, could set new best-practice standards as they join the farmland investment trend.

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

With the surge of corporate farms in Argentina and Brazil over the past two to three years, I thought it would be useful to compile a list of the biggest groups with a short description of each.

Hedge funds and bankers are buying everything from farmland to mines across the Global South. Mark L Thomas looks at how speculators here fuel exploitation half a world away