Never mind food: let’s Aginvest!
As a keen observer of the Occupy Big Food movement (sign up for social media day of action February 27), I hardly know what to make of an invitation I received yesterday to an upcoming conference on “aginvestment.”
Aginvestment? This is a new word in my vocabulary but I guess it means forget food: agriculture is the hot new investment opportunity.
I’ve edited out the details, but here’s the invitation, just as sent:
As you are aware, the trend of investing in agriculture has already started. I can foresee that more and more farmers will become rich and agricultural commodity prices will continue to rise in the long-term. I think ag will be a great place for the next 10-20 years.
I invite you to join me this year…where I will present my views on ag investing and be on-hand throughout the day to answer attendee questions. This conference is a reflection of the real money at work in the space, as well as the increased interest from new allocators.
With investments in agriculture expected to increase up to 5% in institutional portfolios in the next five years, the trailblazing investment experts at this conference will help define the future and how to capitalize on that growth. I have said it before that the power is shifting from the financial centers to the producers of real goods. The place to be is in commodities, raw materials, natural resources, and the place to learn about it is here …
And you thought farming was about growing food?
Follow-up February 24: I received a message apologizing for the previous message.
On February 22, you may have received an email…the marketing and promotional information expressed in that message were issued without [the writer's] full consent or knowledge.
Oh dear.
Leave a comment
Follow Marion
Next public appearance
New York: 92nd St Y, Tribeca
This is a conversation about 101 Classic Cookbooks, 501 Classic Recipes (Rizzoli Books, 2013), with Clark Wolf, Marvin Taylor (curator NYU Fales Library), Rose Levy Beranbaum (author, The Cake Bible), and Madhur Jaffrey (actor and author). 7:30 p.m. 92ndY Tribeca, 200 Hudson St, Price $15, RSVP: here
Comments
Must be a boiler room scam.
Who in their right mind would invest in big ag if you couldn’t patent the crops, or the soil, or the pesticides, or the farmers?
Who can compete with crops that are given a subsidy to boost productivity, speed to market and reduce supply chain costs?
Madness. Sign me up!
About four months ago I attended a small gathering of high level investment folks with some of our local organic diversified farmers. Their clients want to invest in healthy/organic food access for their children and grandchildren. They are creating situations for buying farmland and using a three year conversion program to get the land into good organic shape and then working out leases and/or other agreements between new farmers on the land and the investors. Fascinating model. More fascinating, their very wealthy clients believe food and water will be the new gold and they aren’t concerned about money return as much as securing that food and water access for their progeny.
It seems to me that it is this sort of mindset, and economical behavior, that has largely contributed to the financial instability and income inequality that plagues the majority of developed and developing countries today.
WHO wrote this? Why not expose this “genius”?
Perhaps we can all look forward to eating cake–and bring Twinkies back to a profitable position in the market!
Sometimes I’m just so damn glad I’m not rich.
I’m kind of puzzled how this will make farmers rich, if non-farmer invitees are going to “capitalize on” and siphon off all this growth. The suggestion that “financial centres” have nothing to do with the power in this situation is absurd – look at the increasing concentration of financial capital in farmland.
The farmers aren’t getting rich. It is the middle people are making the money. The milk companies like Dean Foods are making all the money. They made huge profits when farmers were selling out because of the lack of competition in milk companies. We have to pay high feed prices and aren’t making alot of money. We are trying to make up for losing over half our income for one and a half years. The government bailed out the banks instead of the helping our dairy farmers.
[...] here to see the original: Food Politics » Never mind food: let's Aginvest! This entry was posted in Blog Search and tagged big, conference, february, food, invitation, [...]
Lorna, you got that right. The Zwick Center for Food and Resource Policy at the University of Connecticut tracked the dairy farmers’ share of the retail dollar. Back in 2002, we were getting something like 47% of the retail dollar. By 2010, less than 27% finds its way back to the farmer. Here in the Northeast, the average farm size is 100 cows, the farmers are barely recouping from the blows they took in 2009, the year of the Great Milk Price Crash. More empty farms everywhere here.
As to getting rich, the Economic Research Service Briefing Room just released its “Farm Household Economics and Well-Being” report on farm houshold income. Just like Secretary Vilsack mentioned in passing one time, most of the average farmers’ income comes from off-farm jobs. The statistics vary by category (with pork and poultry farmers among the lowest paid). But looking at 2010 median farm houhold income, the average farm lost $2,020 and actual income came from off-farm jobs held by the farmer and spouse (roughly $49,490 as ERS reports).
All we see in Upstate NY is weakness in farmers’ ability to hold their land in agriculture and more sprawl and/or people looking for second home land and land speculators. Some 3,000,000 acres of grassland is now sitting virtually empty or underused as reported by Cornell’s Green Grass, Green Jobs report…thanks to the ag economy that this advisor purports will “MAKE YOU RICH!”
British advisors also urging investors to get into farming. Warning: Graphic Language (hopefully I have managed to copy the link properly) You can find it on You Tube, a Mitchell and Webb skit on “farming”
it’s no boiler room, and it is a ‘growing’ business
check this out http://bit.ly/A8Mndg
in 2011 some idealists even try to boycott one … http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/3420
scarcity-driven investment, after all, is the premise of the enduring economic paradigm. no wonder food speculation and land grab are on the rise … big time! here’s another fresh piece of depressing news http://www.grain.org/e/4479
cheers!
p.s. it is not a money yes, money no kind of issue, but money how
Very disappointing view that agriculture isn’t worth investing in. Without agriculture where does food come from? Without people investing in our small farms, CSAs and other operations that provide food choices where do we have choices? It’s far past time for people to invest in agriculture! Finance the alternative if you don’t like it. We’ve had sponsorships and have all but begged people to invest…that’s over. People’s choices are clear – if they can purchase what they want, then it doesn’t matter what others buy. Legislation changes choices people won’t make on their own. Without land there is no choices and, unfortunately, there isn’t more of that being produced. Without a solid market out here where farms are there isn’t the option to do anything but that which sells…and relying on off farm income is no longer reliable either.
You want to see in a change in agriculture – finance it! The ability to compete in the market isn’t about “big ag” – it’s about consumer demand and that is something that large operations are filling – food at an inexpensive price. Our prices (and costs) are higher…but we have alternatives for what they don’t do. Does it matter? If it doesn’t then it isn’t worthwhile to criticize those who insure people have food. I hope more su
An observer??? Why not be involved? I’m sure they would welcome you on board and not ask for too much. I am involved in my local occupy movement and I’ve never met such interesting, big hearted and self motivated people in my life. It’s worth it! Go for it Dr. Nestle! We’re all in this together and to stand by and just watch is just what the 1% want us to do…
While I haven’t invested too much thought into this idea, my gut feeling is that it is way to dangerous to make the next big investment fad be in our agriculture. Does anyone remember the dot com bust? What about the housing bubble? I do not want so much money flowing into big agriculture that it becomes to big to fail and then it does. That means food shortages and rationing. No thank you, I’d rather invest in small co-opt farms.
Right away I am ready to do my breakfast, once having my breakfast
coming again to read more news.