Contents

       Preface

       Acknowledgements

       List of illustrations

      1Introduction

      2Optic: how do we study the finance–farming nexus?

3History: how old is the finance–farming nexus?

       4Numbers: what we know (and do not know) about finance-gone-farming

       5States: how are foreign investments in farming regulated and accounted for?

       6Value(s): why has the road to “greener pastures” been so bumpy?

       7Delegation: what happens inside the agri-investment chain?

       8Grounding: what does assetization look like from below?

       9Radices: food futures, with or without finance as we know it?

       Epilogue

       References

       Index

       Preface

      This book seeks to unpack a large-scale phenomenon that has sparked a lively debate in the media, among scholars and in activist circles since 2008: the increasing interest of finance capital in all things agricultural, particularly in farmland and farming ventures. My aim in writing has been to enable non-specialist readers to delve into a subject that is often marred with technical jargon and social complexity. Finance and, by implication, how other people’s money is managed are topics too important to be left to specialists, whether they are academics or the finance professionals themselves. “Finance-gone-farming” offers a unique opportunity to study the emergence, evolution and production of a new social space – or “asset class” – through which money is used to create more money on behalf of the “better off” parts of the world, which are able to participate in capital markets. But its study also calls for historical depth, as modern finance has a much longer history in the remaking of agricultural landscapes than is often acknowledged in existing debates.

      What follows has a broad interdisciplinary outlook, speaking to debates in geography, heterodox economics, sociology, anthropology, the social study of finance, agrarian studies and political ecology. Although there is a growing literature on the financialization of food and agriculture, none boasts the empirical grounding and unique field access (down to the level of invested farms) that I have negotiated over seven years of global network building. This book will also be of interest to scholars committed to opening the “black box” of investment chains and the asset/wealth management industry, as well as to those who have attempted to develop more practice-oriented understandings of “financialization” and its social and ecological consequences.

      Previous work loosely informing this book is listed in the reference list. Chapter 6 in particular draws heavily on parts of that work (Ouma 2020).

      A last technical remark. To ensure anonymity, I have changed the names of certain protagonists, withheld the sources of some quotes and slightly altered certain quotes. In all cases, an asterisk is used to indicate this.

       Acknowledgements

      The fieldwork informing this book took me to many different corners of the world: the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Tanzania, Singapore, Australia, Kenya and Aotearoa New Zealand. This journey reflects the globe-spanning networks of modern money management, which touch many sites at once, ever keen to carve out value from a place and redistribute it elsewhere. The connections that made my encounters possible were dependent on the generosity of many people, who, in one way or another, all facilitated my research, the production of the book or a critical review of parts of it.

      Many people in the money management industry (asset managers, farm operators, different service providers, pension fund representatives) have shared their scarce time for interviews or field visits, and most of those approached were remarkably open about such requests. Although not all of them may agree with some of the arguments made in this book (which themselves have evolved over time), I hope they gain something from reading it. Among the many asset and farm managers interviewed, a few individuals in Tanzania, Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia, Germany and Singapore were extraordinarily generous with their time, and deserve special thanks. They know who they