ABSTRACT

Since the mid-2000s, Canada and Australia have become attractive targets for institutional investment in farmland. Both countries have highly industrialized, export-oriented, agricultural sectors and low farmland values by comparison to other countries in the global North. As a result of these and other factors, a range of domestic and foreign investors including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, private equity companies, and wealthy individuals have acquired large tracts of farmland in each country. These trends have sparked public controversies that, in turn, have led to the re-regulation of farmland ownership regimes. I trace the development of the ‘farmland controversy’ in each country through an analysis of media and public discourses between 2008 and 2015. The analysis focuses upon: competing discourses on the benefits and risks of farmland investment; the role of the state in regulating investment flows and farmland ownership; the motivations of financial investors; and, the values attached to farmland. While there is an overlap in some of the discourses mobilized in each ‘farmland controversy’, cross-national differences in political economy, culture, and institutional contexts have led to debates with different parameters in each country. The chapter contributes to understanding the financialization of farmland as a process that is at once global and situated.