From ag fundamentals to agtech innovators: a comprehensive view of ag investing at GAI

NEW YORK, April 11, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- According to ReFED, $218 billion a year is spent in the U.S. on growing, processing, transporting and disposing of food that is never eaten. How do investments in agtech innovations have the power to curb this food waste explosion that, by some estimates, is growing by 10 percent every decade? Expert speakers will address this and more during supplemental programming at Global AgInvesting (GAI) here at the Waldorf Astoria, April 25-28.

The Short Course in Ag Fundamentals on Monday, April 25 will outline the ag investing landscape, historical farmland investment performance, and the fit with food and ag in the private equity portfolio. Tomas Franzén, chief investment strategist at the Second Swedish National Pension Fund,will speak to the role of ag investments in long-horizon portfolios.

"Farmland investments can add significant improvements to long-term institutional investor portfolios with benefits that range from inflation protection to income centric returns to long-term illiquidity premiums," said Franzén. He pointed to strong long-term structural fundamental drivers such as global population growth, a rising middle class and increasing consumption per capita as part of his company's investment thesis. "In 2010, the Second Swedish National Pension Fund added farm and timberland to its policy allocation, and has since built a portfolio that is now approaching five percent of assets under management," he said.

Rounding out the event on April 28 is the GAI AgTech Investment Summit on Thursday, April 28. Key discussions include the multitude of agtech consolidations, current investment trends and future outlook, and through speaker Eva Fowler, opportunities for investing in food waste solutions.

Fowler is associate director of programs and communications of the New Venture Fund and works exclusively with ReFED, a collaboration of over 30 business, nonprofit, foundation and government leaders committed to reducing food waste in the U.S. ReFED recently released the Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste that highlights 27 waste reduction solutions towards the goal of reducing food waste in the U.S. by 50 percent by 2030.

During her presentation, Opportunities to Invest in Waste Reduction, Fowler will elaborate on issues surrounding food waste, specifically the opportunities in investing in the innovative ag tech start-ups who will be effecting change in the space. 

Registration, and full agenda and speaker list, is available exclusively at www.globalaginvesting.com/GAI16.

CONTACT: Michelle Pelletier-Marshall
[email protected]

SOURCE Global AgInvesting

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http://www.globalaginvesting.com/GAI16