Sunil Jain: Landing an investment

Most have focused over countries like China buying up land overseas to grow crops to feed the home market — in actual fact, NGO Grain points out, increasingly investment funds are rushing to buy land (http://www.grain.org/articles/?id=55#sdfootnote2sym). In August 2009, the website says, the Government of Mauritius got a long term lease of 20,000 ha of land in Mozambique to produce rice for the Mauritian market but instead of keeping the lease with itself, it sub-leased the land to two companies, one from Singapore and one from Swaziland. The NGO has a list of over 120, mostly newly-created, equity funds and pension funds engaged in the business (it says the list is not exhaustive). It quotes a functionary of Altima One, created by the $3bn Altima Partners’ hedge fund, as saying “My boss wants to create the first Exxon Mobil of the farming sector”. You can view the development with fear and loathing, the way Grain does, or you can see it as the next big investment wave — either way, investment capital coming into farmland is going to be in the news for some time to come.
 

The big land rush (Big investment funds controlling land, indicative list)
Name	Country	Type	Abstract
Abraaj Capital	UAE	Investment firm	Has a share capital of $1bn and plans to invest in dairy farming in Pakistan
Advance Terra Fund	Bulgaria	Specialised fund	Has 30,000 ha of farmland of which 20,000 ha is already leased out
Agrifirma	UK	Investment firm	Has acquired 42,000 ha in Brazil and has a put option over another 27,000 ha
AgroEnergy AG	Germany	Investment/ production firm	Expects to be managing 18,000 ha in 3-5 years
Agrowill AB	Lithuania	Investment/ production firm	Controls 35,300 ha of land mainly in Estonia and Lithuania
Alpcot Agro	Sweden	Investment firm	Controls 161,000 ha of Russian farmland
Al Qudra	UAE	Investment firm	Got 1,500 ha in Morocco and Algeria, targetting 400,000 ha in various countries
Beltone Pvt Equity	Egypt	Private equity fund	Operates 84,000 ha sugar plantation in Sudan
Landkom	UK	Investment firm	Leased 100,000 ha in Ukraine — targets 350,00 ha by 2011
Nauvu Investments	Singapore	Investment firm	Has 36,000 ha of oilpalm plantations, 50,000 ha of rubber and 10,000 ha of sugarcane
Source: http://www.grain.org/m/?id=266