The 357 footnotes alone are worth the price of admission.
From the Oakland Institute, December 2012:
“I’m convinced that farmland is going to be one of the best investments of our time. Eventually,
of course, food prices will get high enough that the market probably will be flooded with supply
through development of new land or technology or both, and the bull market will end. But that’s a long ways away yet.”
– George Soros, June 2009
“It is the decade of agriculture in Africa. Food security will become the next tradable commodity.”Fund Profiles:
– Stewart Paperin, President of Soros Economic Development Fund180
Fund Managers Who Partially or Fully Responded to OI
Amerra Capital ManagementFund Managers Who Did Not Respond to OI
Chess Ag Full Harvest Partners
Farmlands of Africa Ltd
Galterre Ltd
UBS Agrivest
Ceres Partners...Many More
George Soros
Hancock Natural Resources
GMO LLC
TIAA-CREF/The Westchester Group
Here's an example from page 41
BOX 5: A CLOSER LOOK AT ADECOAGRO...MUCH MORE (82page PDF)
(ALSO KNOWN AS INTERNATIONAL FARMLAND HOLDINGS)
As of December 31, 2011, Adecoagro owned a total of 725,065 acres (293,423 ha), comprised of 23 farms in Argentina, 13 farms in Brazil, and one farm in Uruguay. The company is engaged in the production of raw and industrialized milk, crop commodities (soybeans, corn, wheat, sunflower, and cotton), sugar/
ethanol, rice, coffee, as well as cattle breeding. It became public in January 2011 and is traded on the New York Stock Exchange.186
• Soros Fund Management is Adecoagro’s largest shareholder (although it reduced its stake from 33 percent to 21 percent in January 2011). In June 2012, media reported on potential takeovers, notably from US agribusiness companies Bunge and Cargill.187
• Adecoagro was founded by Mariano Bosch (CEO) and Alan Leland Boyce (Board of Directors).188
• Mr. Bosch serves on the advisory board of Teays River Investments LLC, a farmland investment management firm in North America, which works with OSO (see Ospraie profile).
• Mr. Boyce has worked for 8 years at Soros and also headed Absalon, a join-venture between Soros and the Danish financial system. In addition, he has been involved under the aegis of George Soros in assignments with the governments of Argentina and Mexico. Involved in many agricultural and energy production companies in the US, Mr. Boyce is also Director of Agrica Ltd, a rice producer whose land acquisition in Tanzania was disputed by nearby communities (who were eventually relocated).189 Finally, Mr. Boyce also influences industry research and information as an advisory member of High Quest Partners, a consulting and events company serving agriculture, agribusiness, grains, oilseed, food, and biofuels markets.
AFFILIATIONS
• George Soros entertains many affiliations outside
the realm of investments. He is the founder of
New Economic Thinking, the Director for the Institute
for International Economics, and the Director
of the Council on Foreign Relations, among
many other positions. He founded the Open Society
Foundation....
It appears that Mr. Green jeans himself, Jeremy Grantham was not very forthcoming despite his love of no-till.
DealBreaker 25Jul2011:
Jeremy Grantham Long Soil, Short Capitalism
These are turbulent times in the financial markets and a lot of investment managers are yearning for the simpler life of corn and cows rather than corn futures and deals structured by cows. Jim Rogers has been happy to advise anyone on Wall Street who’ll listen to get into farming.
In general, you probably want to take Jim Rogers’s advice. But here you have a dilemma, since you grew up in the suburbs, you’ve worked in finance all your life, and the closest you’ve ever come to a farm was when that guy on your floor at Penn showed you the hydroponic setup in his closet. So who will teach you what you need to know about farming?
Talk to Jeremy Grantham of GMO, who is looking to get you set up in the growing field of no-till farming.
You may remember Grantham’s last quarterly letter, cheerfully titled “Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever.” Today Grantham is out with his 2Q letter, “Resource Limitations 2: Separating the Dangerous from the Merely Serious,” which offers a little bit of hope if we all give up on capitalism and get back to low-impact farming.
Like many investment newsletters, this one starts from the premise that capitalism is fundamentally broken:
Capitalism does not address these very long-term issues easily or well. It seems to me that capitalism’s effectiveness moves along the spectrum of time horizons, brilliant at the short end but lost, irrelevant, and even plain dangerous at the very long end.What is capitalism not doing so well at? Energy? A problem, but “current capitalist responses to higher prices should get the job done.” Metals? A bigger problem, but “If we respond to increasing price pressures, as I’m sure we will, with a greater emphasis on quality and small scale along with an increasingly sensible and non-wasteful lifestyle, then we can push these serious constraints out for well over a hundred years.” But the real kicker is dirt. Grantham loves dirt...MORE
