Touch the Soil News #2044 (photo – Corn Field – Courtesy of NRCS/USDA) For anyone that is farming in soils, access to farmland is a challenge to keep an eye on. If there is a reasonable deal, it may be worth stretching a little to get it. Recently, two plots of land sold in Iowa,…
Touch the Soil News #2024 (photo Cattle and horses in stockyards, Australia) (Cgoodwin, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported) Australian Financial Review brings the story of one of the world’s largest land purchases. The buyers are represented by one of Canada’s largest fund managers on behalf of a group of institutional investors. The important thing to…
Touch the Soil News #1976 (Photo – Wheat Harvest – USDA – Public Domain) The USDA just released its Cropland Value Report. The USDA estimates that the volume of land in farms continues to inch downwards, coming in at 893 million acres. Of that amount actual cropland in the neighborhood of 300 million acres and…
Touch the Soil News #1899 (Feature Photo – Farming in Pakistan – Photo CCA SA 3.0 Unported, Sanam Mir Ghazi)) News from the nation of Pakistan is putting food and farming into a global perspective. Pakistan is the world’s 5th most populous nation with 243 million people (the U.S. has 334 million people at number…
Touch the Soil News #1873 (Feature Photo – Grain Harvest – CCA SA 2.0 Generic, Andrew Smith) Years ago, (mid-90s) there was a big push under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization to have nations harmonize laws for cross-border trade and foreign businesses setting up shop anywhere. No, almost 30 years later with global…
Touch the Soil News #1841 (Feature Photo – Potato Harvest – CCA SA 4.0) While the USDA does annual surveys on the value of farmland, specifics about large sales often carry more insights. One place to gain more insights is from a publicly traded stock company called Farmland Partners. They are in the business of…
Touch the Soil News #1828 (Feature Photo – Almond Orchard – CCA 2.5 Generic, Nissan Lev-Ran Pikiwiki Israel) One of the companies we like to follow is Gladstone Land. Gladstone is a Wall Street company that buys and owns farmland on behalf of its investors. The company presently owns 164 farms in 15 states valued…
Positive Future News #935 (Feature Photo – Farmland – CCA SA 2.0 Generic, Andrew Smith) The non-profit called Grain, is sponsoring a webinar on what they call Pension Fund Capitalism. The webinar is about a simple concept. Monies set aside around the world for pension plans, is estimated to be $52 trillion. Now, money from…
Touch the Soil News #1797 (Feature Photo Worrall Creek Aggregation – Courtesy of JLL Agribusiness) Queensland Country Life news, brings us the unusual story of the coming sale of a one of Australia’s largest farms – 66,000 acres. Called the Worral Creek Aggregation, the farm is in Australia, where few farms have adequate water. This…
Positive Future News #908 (Feature Photo – Organic Produce – CCA SA 3.0 Unported, Elina Mark) Farmland LP is an interesting business model. They buy farmland, transition the land to organics and upgrade all other aspects of the farm. Farmland LP then oversees the production while selecting the farmers that will grow the crops. Farmland…
