The financialisation of food and farming

Muck, brass and smoke: Policy post-exceptionalism in the agri-food sector

“… Benoit and Patsias (2017) , Tosun (2017) and McCarthy et al (2018) highlight how actors who were formerly marginalized within agri-food politics, including processors, suppliers, retailers, NGOs and consumers/consumer organizations, have begun to play an increasingly active role in the policy area. Similarly, Lawrence et al (2015) argue that increased financialization and corporatization of the agriculture industry have brought various upstream (e.g. financial institutions, input producers) and downstream interests and agencies (e.g.…”

The social construction of “shared growth”: Zambia Sugar and the uneven terrain of social benefit

“…Driven by a combination of policy and market forces, and rationalized by its ability to contribute to food security and rural development, investment in farmland in the Global South has intensified over the past decade (Anseeuw et al, ; Cotula, ; Deininger et al, ). Market drivers, while variable over time, have included the growth in emerging economies, expectations of future returns from agriculture resulting from a projected mismatch in global commodity demand and supply, greater vertical integration resulting from the restructuring of the agricultural and food industry (e.g., for supply chain governance and quality controls), increased attractiveness of land as an asset class for financial players, and the growing financialization of the global food system (Anseeuw et al, ; Barrett, Ilbery, Browneand, & Binns, ; Bergdolt & Mittal, ; Cotula, ; Dolan & Humphrey, ; Lawrence, Sippel, & Burch, ; Zoomers, ). A recent report by the Land Matrix highlights both the durability of these trends and their evolution—with the largest number of investments targeting food crops and the African region, private companies driving most deals, and more investments becoming operational over time (Nolte, Chamberlain & Giger, ).…”

Las estrategias empresariales del agronegocio en la era de la financiarización. El caso de El Tejar.

“…Financiarización de la agricultura: el papel de las firmas de private equity Desde la década de 1970, las expansiones financieras posibilitadas por la desregulación de los mercados implicaron una mayor incidencia de agentes especulativos en la llamada "economía real": consorcios de private equity, fondos de cobertura de riesgo (hegde funds), gestores de fondos de inversión, fondos de pensión, bancos comerciales, fondos soberanos, entre otros (Lawrence, Sippel y Burch, 2015).…”