September 21, 2015

The Oregon Investment Council, Tigard, that manages the $69.7 billion Oregon Public Employees Retirement Fund, (OPERF) Salem, has invested $100 million with the Brookfield Brazil Agriculture Fund II, according to council minutes.

The Brookfield Brazil Agriculture Fund II is managed by Toronto-based Brookfield Asset Management, which has targeted a corpus of $500 million for its latest Brazilian farmland fund with a maximum of $700 million according to Bloomberg. The fund will be a used as a vehicle to acquire Brazilian cattle ranches that will be converted to soybean and sugarcane farms.

Founded in 1899 in Sao Paulo as Brascan Ltd., Brookfield has a long history in the country of Brazil, before changing its name to Brookfield in 2005.

Since 2006, soybean farmers in Brazil have expanded acreage by 11 million hectares, (27 million acres) on the back of soaring demand from China. Most of this expansion in cultivation was on land previously used for low-productive cattle breeding. Although the process necessitates high volumes of fertilizer entailing a large up-front capital investment, the conversion of Brazilian ranchland to farmland results in both an increase in the land value and revenue from the land.

Oregon is not the only state to recently invest in Brookfield Brazil Agriculture Fund II. In May of this year, The New Mexico State Investment Council (NMSIC) committed $75 million to the fund in a move to increase diversification for the Council.

Past investments for OPERF have included an allocation to the Brookfield Timberlands Fund V according to spokesman, Michael Cox.