Investing in farmland: underweight equities, overweight earth

Catherine Penman from property consultancy Carter Jonas says agricultural land, as an asset class, is growing in stature in the minds of professional investors

Farms and farmland made the headlines in late February when renowned investment adviser Marc Faber, aka Dr Doom, urged investors to buy agricultural farmland over more conventional assets such as equities and bonds. This may have come as a surprise to some but the reality is agricultural land, as an asset class, has been growing in stature in the minds of professional investors for quite some time – certainly in relation to mainstream commercial and residential property. They see it as a stable, inflation-proof asset not dissimilar to gold. Increasingly, investors are going underweigh...