Wharton

100 billion euros in farmland. That is what, according to an exhaustive report by Greenpeace and Datadistamanages venture capital in the Iberian Peninsula through some 900 investment funds. It is not a Spanish rarity: it is an international boom. In 2015, there were only 45 funds specialized in ‘agribusiness’ in the world; today there are more than a thousand. Back in Spain, since 2019 the purchase and sale of properties has grown by 20%. In 2023 alone, some 148,000 properties were sold. Nine out of ten; at least in Andalusia, They were bought without a mortgage. But this is not what is worrying. After all, we have spent years talking about the financialization of the field. What we didn’t know was the profound impact that this was going to have. How the Spanish farmer is changing. According to the report, there are three types of buyers: specialized investment funds, large industrial corporations and family fortunes. That is, the ownership of land is separating very quickly of it: what were previously businessmen or traditional owners with a certain connection to the territory, are now simply investors. And that has generated a new type of company: specialized intermediaries. Those that allow investors without any experience operate farms as if they were “franchises”. Companies like Balam or Todolivo offer comprehensive management of plantations (from genetic improvement and planting to harvesting). The problem, according to experts who are studying these transformations, is that changes in ownership and changes in management are leading to a change in productive structure of rural Spain. To put it bluntly: this approach does not generate meaningful local employment. Andalusia, to go with the most visual example, has lost 178,957 agricultural jobs between 2017 and 2014. Billions are entering the Spanish countryside, but that money does not reach the base. Why is it important? Because the rural world is being transformed at a forced pace: the generational change crisisthe lurches in the water regime and the problems with the CAP are the icing on the cake: sources of uncertainty that make it impossible to know where we are going. And that has direct consequences in our daily lives. For example, in the case of oil, we are not only going to see how EVOO price volatility increases even in good harvests. As if that were not enough, we are going to move towards varietal standardization (to focus on super-intensive varieties), a loss of rural population and an even deeper disarticulation (industrial, social and cultural) of emptied Spain. Image | Vasilis Caravitis In Xataka | In California, the funds discovered that there is no investment more profitable than farmland. Now it’s Spain’s turn