A new report uncovers how international pension funds, foreign investments and institutions are tearing down any future for rural communities in Northeastern Brazil.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is in advanced talks to buy a stake in Miner and commodity trader Glencore Plc's agricultural business, which has farming operations covering 270,000ha in Argentina, Australia, Kazakhstan, Russia and the Ukraine.

It’s obvious that pension funds and other big-money managers are ‘getting’ the agri-land investment story.

Japanese translation of article of GRAIN, "Pension funds: key players in the global farmland grab"

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.

Billionaires, North American pension funds and some of Australia’s most prominent pastoral families have claimed stakes in NSW farmland, according to The Weekly Times’ 10th annual Who Owns Australia’s Farm investigation.

Agriculture, long overlooked as a handy defensive investment space by fund managers more interested in infrastructure, commercial real estate and shopping centres, has become the focus of big spending activity of late.

Giant US investment fund TIAA-CREF expects Australia's ageing farmers and a lack of sons and daughters willing to inherit their farms will lead to large numbers of properties hitting the market over the coming decade.

For private equity houses, pension funds and family offices, the sprawling farms of sub Saharan Africa are the new land of plenty.

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

Une enquête du Comité d’éthique du fonds de pension norvégien, actionnaire du groupe Bolloré, sur les opérations de Socfin au Cameroun imputent de graves méfaits à ce mastodonte de l’agro-industrie qui contrôle Socapalm et Safacam.

European banks, pension funds and private equity funds have given financial assistance worth more than €450 million to Malaysian palm oil giant Sime Darby, responsible for environmental degradation and violations of national regulations in Liberia.

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan portfolio now includes 130,000 acres of agricultural land globally, from apple orchards to row crop farmland and aquaculture assets, in Australia, Chile, Canada, the US and Portugal

Agriculture opportunities are accessed through land purchase (for production of foodstuffs or, more recently, biofuels), through equity investments in companies associated with this theme or – as is the case for £143m Ceres Agriculture fund – through pure derivative strategies.

The university's endowment fund, meant to support educational and research goals, was misused to acquire 850,000 hectares of farmland across 5 continents during the past 10 years.

Activist groups and nearly 300 pension plan clients accuse TIAA of “systematic land acquisitions and land management linked to deforestation, illegality and human rights violations, including in the Brazilian Cerrado.”

The deal will also see the company, backed by Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board, acquire two certified organic properties owned by Arcadian covering over 30,000 ha.

Controversial hedge fund tycoon Crispin Odey invested more than US$170m into one of Brazil’s most damaging agribusinesses despite it deforesting large areas and receiving numerous environmental fines

AgCAP has completed the sale of its initial Sustainable Agriculture Fund (SAF) portfolio, which included the sale to institutional and private equity investors of SAF’s three cropping aggregations in Australia.

TLG manages 20,000 hectares of farmland in Uruguay producing beef, soybeans, rice, and timber on behalf of European pension funds, insurance companies and family offices.

Last year trustees added a global farmland fund managed by Insight Investment Management to the Kingfisher pension scheme.

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.

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is buying a portfolio of Saskatchewan farms, with the $128-million purchase of Assiniboia Farmland LP.

Farmland investments such as the new ACM Permanent Crop Fund can attract institutions by combining social responsibility and commercial promise.

The Vermont Pension Investment Committee has invested $100 million in the Nuveen Global Farmland Fund, which aims to make farmland acquisitions averaging $20m across the US, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Poland, Romania and Chile.

The $128-million deal that saw Canada Pension Plan acquire 46,500 hectares of Saskatchewan farmland was "wrong, both legally and morally," says Rick Swenson, leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Saskatchewan.

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.

Billionaires, North American pension funds and some of Australia’s most prominent pastoral families have claimed stakes in NSW farmland, according to The Weekly Times’ 10th annual Who Owns Australia’s Farm investigation.

Reporting by Agência Pública has revealed how investors including U.S. pension funds and an Argentine agribusiness giant may be linked to illegal land deals and deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado region.

When Microsoft announced a 10-year carbon removal deal with US forestry credits firm Aurora, some people with a Bristol, UK pension pool were paying close attention.