Amerlafrance

All About Investing in Agricultural Land

Some older established comapnies to look at (all overseas) includ Cresud (CRESY) for Argentina farmsland, and MP Evans Group and Camellia Group (both traded in London). Still hard for small US invesotrs to find a good way to get into farmland as an investment.

The Black Swan in Food

With this type of move, reversion to the mean is a risk that really precludes me from going long directly in the grains at this time. However, the high cost of grain has farmers liquidating herds and that is depressing cattle prices temporarily as those herds move to market. With the world's increasing demand for protein in the diet, I am looking at livestock as the trading play over the summer. I do not like the ETFs (COW, LSO, UBC) because of the credit risk of the banks, so am looking how else to trade this idea. From investing standpoint for longterm funds, I wonder if there will be a full reversion to the mean in grains or whether there is a new paradigm (mean reset) for grain crops caused by the spread of wealth to larger segements of the population (in essence a flattening of wealth disparities with the US losing wealth to other countires). That would have hugh implications but direct investment in grains would not necessarily be the best approach. The farm support sector may work best (seed, fertilizer and equipment) for agricultural investments, but the actual impacts of such a shift in relative wealth could be more dramatic as basic food needs are met and the welath effect translates to other forms of consumption. Sustainability is the big issue here, and I would bet that there will need to be a change of lifestyle to allow needs to be met long term. Crystal ball cloudy, but the discussion should be enlightening.