Hedge Farm! Doomsday Food Price Scenario Turning

[AgeOfEnlightenmentSCP]

Hedge fund managers into survivalists...

www.observer.com/hedge-funds-running-farms-05172011

The pattern began to emerge sometime in 2008. "The Hedge Fund Manager Who Bought a Farm," read the headline on one February 2008 Times of London piece detailing a British hedge fund manager's attempt to play off the rising prices of grains in order to usurp local farmland. A Financial Times piece two months later began: "Hedge funds and investment banks are swapping their Gucci for gumboots." It detailed BlackRock's then-relatively new $420 million Agriculture Fund, which had already swept up 2,800 acres of land.

A study commissioned by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and released in January estimated the amount of private capital currently committed to farmland and agricultural infrastructure at $14 billion. It also estimated that future investments will "dwarf" what's currently being thrown into land, by two to three times. Further down, the study makes a conservative projection that the amount of capital potentially entering the sector over the next decade will fly past $150 billion.

[handyman2]

Blackrock is a very smart investment group. They must be on to something. I wonder if the Brits have farm subsidy programs. If so that could be very lucrative.