INCREASED INVESTMENTS IN AGRICULTURE URGED BY UNITED NATIONS

Pergam Finance illustrates how agricultural investments continue to increase as wise investors seek stable, responsible areas of the market

When the United Nations’ food experts called for increased agricultural investment from the public and private sectors to offset soaring prices in February 2011, the news came as no surprise to Olivier Combastet, the successful fund manager whose company, Pergam Finance, has been cultivating investments in agriculture for several years.

In 2005, Olivier Combastet created Campos Orientales, a subsidiary of Pergam Finance that specializes in the procurement and operation of agricultural land, particularly farmland in Uruguay and Argentina.  Campos Orientales’ vision is to offer a long-term investment portfolio that operates in an ethical manner (the company does not engage in deforestation, for example). And what could be more ethical than increasing food supply for the world’s rapidly increasing population and protecting precious resources such as farmland?

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s Senior Economist Jamie Morrison told a UN Council, “Particular attention is needed to increase smallholder productivity growth and to their increased integration into markets.  Support to ensure more farmers are willing and able to generate marketable surpluses will be critical in meeting increased demands in the future.  To achieve this increased investment is paramount.”

At Pergam Finance and Campos Orientales, Olivier Combastet has long-since known that given the increasing world population and destruction of agricultural land, the demand for agricultural commodities can only grow in coming years. This  not only means profit for investors, it also means stability in the midst of uncertain global conditions, much-needed job creation for farmers, and ethical investment strategies that address the world’s growing needs for food.

Indeed, David Nabarro, coordinator of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Task Force on Global Food Security cited “under-investment” in agricultural funds as a growing problem.  “A point that we’ve been maintaining now for the last 30 years [is] that there is systemic and serious under-investment in agriculture and food security that’s a problem now, but it’ll be a much greater problem as we move towards 2015.”  Astonishingly, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization predicts that by 2050 there will be a third more mouths to feed. 

Thankfully, one does not have to look far to find the solution to this problem.  Olivier Combastet and his management teams at Pergam Finance and Campos Orientales work hand-in-hand with local Argentinean farmers to ensure diverse raw materials, better agricultural logistics to improve efficiency and land productivity, and also manage the farmland portfolio so that this acquired land can achieve economies of scale. 

How to feed the world? Pergam Finance. Ethical investments for a hungry world.