‘Pinstripes on the prairies’: examining the financialization of farming systems in the Canadian prairie provinces

The financialization of agri-food in Canada and Australia: Corporate farmland and farm ownership in the grains and oilseed sector

“…Her research underscores the complex motives behind agri-investments such as Hassad Foods, 4 a subsidiary of the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, which blends commercial and food security objectives and has had mixed impacts for the rural communities in which it operates. Along with some of my colleagues, I have provided a snapshot of the state of financial investment in farmland on the Canadian prairies (Sommerville and Magnan, 2015;Desmarais et al, 2015).…”

Running out of farmland? Investment discourses, unstable land values and the sluggishness of asset making

“…For Canada, only Saskatchewan is included. This is a rather exceptional Canadian region, where investors from outside the province had not been allowed to buy land until recently, which drastically contained the rise of land prices (Sommerville and Magnan 2015). With the abolishment of this regulation, prices have jumped to the level of neighboring provinces.…”

Food security or commercial business? Gulf State investments in Australian agriculture

“…Findings from Canada and Eurasia, as well as from various European countries, demonstrate that the Global North is not only a source but also a site of investment of agricultural capital (cf. e.g., Visser and Spoor 2011;Visser, Mamonova, and Spoor 2012;Magnan 2012;Sommerville 2013;Franco and Borras 2013;Sommerville and Magnan forthcoming). With a focus on financial investments, as Sommerville and Magnan (forthcoming) argue, the entry of new sources of capital into regional agricultural economies occurs by means of financial vehicles that blend financial and productive logics.…”