January 6, 2015

Urbanization, decreasing productivity, and challenges posed by shifts in weather patterns are just some of the hurdles facing global agriculture in meeting future food demand. Scientists, entrepreneurs, and farmers all have ideas to develop in order to enable food supply to keep pace with demand, however, investment dollars are needed in order to make them a reality, and institutional investors are beginning to take notice. Over the past 20 years farmland investment in the U.S. has seen an average return of 12%, and within the past 10 years has outperformed other major asset classes, causing some to call it ‘gold with a coupon’. Aside from returns, agricultural investments offer portfolio diversification, resistance to inflation, economic shocks and interest rate hikes, and are uncorrelated to bonds and stocks. Despite these advantages, there are only 36 agriculture-focused funds with $15 billion under management, compared to 144 funds focused on infrastructure with $89 billion under management, and 473 real estate funds with $163 billion under management. To read further about the great investment potential that lies within the agricultural and agtech sectors and the factors that could be holding back investors from seizing this potential:

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