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Abstract
This paper has two objectives. First, it aims to analyse how transnational agricultural traders are positioning themselves in, and capitalising on, the financialisation of agriculture. Second, it seeks to position land investments in this process. This is done by situating Cargill – one of the largest agricultural trading companies in the world – into the transformation of agriculture in the world economy and by assessing its strategies of adaption through private equity-driven land investment in the Philippines. The article notes, following Burch and Lawrence, that the transforming position of agriculture is created by reshaping relationships in the agri-food supply chain and is based on the logic of finance capital. An example of this process from the Philippines is provided, where Cargill’s private equity arm – Black River Asset Management– is investing in land through equity acquisitions of a Philippine company, Agrinurture, in a manner that allows the company to adapt to national and local dynamics. The evolving and deepening connection between finance and agriculture is presented first, followed by a discussion of how Cargill fits into this transition in the Philippine context.
Acknowledgements
This paper is based on fieldwork from a research programme funded by nwo-wotro called ‘(Trans)national Land Investments in Indonesia and the Philippines: Contested Control of Farm land and Cash Crops’. I am very grateful for the support of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (nwo), Science for Global Development (wotro) and to the programme coordinators, Rosanne Rutten and Gerben Nooteboom. I appreciate Jun Borras for his guidance and support with this paper.
Notes
1. Clapp, “Financialization, Distance and Global Food Politics,” 1.
2. See Murphy et al., Cereal Secrets; and Rain Forest Action Network, Cargill’s Problems with Palm.
3. Margulis and Porter, “Governing the Global Land Grab.”
4. The case is more an example of the acquisition of the control of land rather than a land acquisition in and of itself, because of the nature and structure of the project. This will become clearer throughout the discussion on the nature of the investment.
5. Epstein, Financialization, 3.
6. Murphy et al., Cereal Secrets, 6.
7. High Quest Partners, Private Finanacial Sector Investment, 1.
8. McMichael, “The Land Grab and Corporate Food,” 690.
9. Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century.
10. High Quest Partners, Private Finanacial Sector Investment, 17–19.
11. Ibid., 17.
12. Ibid., 18.
13. Milltrust Group, “Top Performing Agricultural Funds.”
14. Burch and Lawrence, “Towards a Third Food Regime,” 268.
15. Fairbairn, “‘Like Gold with Yield’,” 3.
16. Murphy et al., Cereal Secrets, 27.
17. Clapp and Helleiner, “Troubled Futures?,” 187.
18. Isakson, “Financialization,” 4.
19. Crotty, “Structural Causes,” 564.
20. Isakson, “Financialization,” 9.
21. Kneen, Invisible Giant, 20.
22. Murphy et al., Cereal Secrets, 8.
23. Ibid., 14.
24. Interview with Cargill employee, October 18, 2010.
25. Borras and Franco, “Global Land Grabbing,” 41.
26. See Edelman et al., “Global Land Grabs”; and Borras et al., “The Politics of Evidence.”
27. Wolford et al., “Governing Global Land Deals,” 206.
28. Ofreneo, Capitalism in Philippine Agriculture; and Putzel, A Captive Land.
29. Putzel, A Captive Land; and Rivera, Landlords and Capitalists.
30. Abinales, Making Mindanao.
31. Vellema et al., “The Agrarian Roots.”
32. Borras and Franco, “Struggles for Land and Livelihood,” 343.
33. Ibid., 352.
34. Ibid., 337.
35. Ibid., 340.
36. Interview with Cargill employee, October 18, 2010.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Interview with Cargill employee, October 16, 2010.
41. Interview with ani employee, October 1, 2012.
42. Borras and Franco, “Struggles for Land and Livelihood,” 340.