Farming as financial asset : global finance and the making of institutional landscapes / Stefan Ouma.

Cover -- Half Title -- Series Information -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Illustrations -- Chapter 1 Introduction: -- Placing this book's approach -- Institutional landscapes and the financial asset character of agriculture -- Grounding agri-investment chains -- A tale of two frontiers -- Producing knowledge about institutional landscapes -- Structure of the book -- Chapter 2 Optic: How do we study the finance-farming nexus? -- Whither financialization? -- Towards an operational account of institutional landscapes

Financial keywords under scrutiny -- Financial "markets" -- Asset -- Investor -- Private equity -- Conclusion -- Chapter 3 History: How old is the finance-farming nexus? -- Frontiers into assets: imperial landscapes and the quite early globalization of finance -- From individual to institutional asset: the rise of farmland investment thinking in the United States and United Kingdom -- Finance from farming -- Conclusion -- Chapter 4 Numbers: What we know (and do not know) about finance-gone-farming -- The basic data problem -- Macro-trends

The flesh-and-blood institutions behind finance-gone-farming -- Where capital likes (not) to go -- From hype to soberness: the AG investment space, 2008-2018 -- The merits and limits of public records -- Conclusion -- Chapter 5 States: How are foreign investments in farming regulated and accounted for? -- Grappling with foreign investment regimes in Aotearoa New Zealand and Tanzania -- A country built on "foreign investment" -- From money as an outcome to money as the basis of development -- Examining the rise of institutional landscapes in Aotearoa New Zealand and Tanzania

Thick institutional landscapes -- Thin institutional landscapes -- The politics of capital placements in agriculture -- Conclusion -- Chapter 6 Value(s): Why has the road to "greener pastures" been so bumpy? -- Rethinking assets and assetization: a moral economy perspective -- Legitimization struggles: from within -- Internal barriers to assetization -- Responses from industry players -- Legitimization struggles: outside forces -- External barriers to assetization: "society" fights back -- Responses from industry players -- Conclusion

Chapter 7 Delegation: What happens inside the agri-investment chain? -- Inside the placement calculus -- The investment structure: the glue that holds everything together -- The deal cycle for capital placements in farming -- Controversies along the chain -- The investment horizon -- Leveraging as usual? -- Fees -- Conclusion -- Chapter 8 Grounding: What does assetization look like from below? -- The work of institutional landscapes I: diagnostic moments in agri-investment chains -- Securing the future (Case 3) -- Command and control farming, and its limits (Case 5)

Since the global financial crisis, the world has seen a stark rise in financial investment in farming and agricultural production. Indeed, finance has been identified as one of the main causes of the so-called "global land rush". Agriculture and land represent safe investment opportunities and in a world with a growing population that needs to be fed, the returns are a safe bet. The debate that this has caused in the media is frequently alarmist and financiers are blamed for rising land prices and intensification of land commodification across the globe.0Stefan Ouma seeks to debunk the misconceptions and assumptions about "finance-gone-farming" with a penetrating analysis of case studies taken from both the developed and developing world, revealing the role of global finance in the agricultural sectors of these very different settings. The book provides a fascinating insight into the inner workings of the agri-focused asset management industry.

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