Cracking Down

For decades, farmland funds have been destroying natural wildlife habitats for the sake of investor returns. Governments must start taking action.

In the absence of any oversight or restriction, mega-sized farmland managers have been pushing the easy button to drive returns by creating land suitable only for input-intensive monocropping. Extractive capital investments in farmland have thus far gone unchecked, but a series of new developments offer hope that this can be reversed.

• Fund managers like Fractal, who understand the potential for soil health to reward investors, are in the market building portfolios now;

• Satellite systems for monitoring land use changes and validating environmental claims are being commercialized and deployed for compliance;

• Ecology-focused scientific research is appearing in mainstream farm media regarding the impact of absentee funds on communities, small and new farms, the environment and the food supply.

• Some individual private equity investors recognize the risk of having their capital deployed in extractive businesses in the new world of ESG compliance and Scope 3 emissions reporting, and are deploying projects to have their land transitioned.

Plainly, there is significant loss to natural habitats, and far-reaching downstream pollution, that results from clearing trees and filling in marshes… and the heavy agrochemical applications that follow. But who has actual power to stop mega-farms from doing it? Here are some possibilities: