Farm financiers

34 { 1 September 2013 l'actualité LES FINANCIERES PASS TO THE RAILWAY! GERARD ROUSSEAU : NICOLAS MESL Y TERRITORY News 1 September 2013 } 35 FINANCIALS PASS TO THE RAILWAY! In Quebec, baby boomers are retiring. Land is an excellent investment and thousands of hectares will soon be for sale.

The National Bank, private funds, the Caisse de dépôt s'y interest. And you ? by Nicolas Mesly • illustration of the redastien thibault A lain Lema y, a 50 year old dairy pr than Lake Saint John, wondered at times what happened to his farm, located near L

"J-ai v endu ma terre twice the price!"From no vembre 2011 to vril 2012 , the BN bought at Lac-Saint-Jean 3,277 hectar es de terres from a dozen farmers, creating a 30 times more favourable advantage than the farm québé - mean coise. In the middle of its 400 vaches attripped on a peeled hill, Gérard R-lesseau, who was able to look at one of these terres, did not decelerate. S has closed its doors on R-lesseau Road, by the name of his family, in Sint-Stanislas, a small village in the nord of Lac-Saint-Jean.

Since five generations, the R's network has been ready to buy and rent land from locals. Gérard had a surprise when it emerged that his competition for the purchase of the terre e v oisine was his pre-opération bank. "I wasn't playing with equal arms. I had to borrow money from them to buy!" he said.

In the past 10 years, he had been re-elect for his son, who was in front of him to bequeath the reins of the family business. In Quebec and around the world, agricultural land is increasingly attracting the confidence of bankers and investors in the search for investments that could be expected to be ardently in the future of the people of Quebec.

The case was not resolved, but the concern was raised: were the Quebec government going to be taken over by financial interests outside the agricultural sector? For the most part, the majority of farms continue to be farmers: 84% of the farms are owned by their owners (including large number of companies with a number of o) and 1 4% are non-farmers.

The income of farmers is a major factor in the growth of the agricultural sector.

To buy a dairy farm in Quebec, it takes 2.45 million dollars for the quota (1.45 million) and the land! For an investor, the cultivated territories in Quebec — the most expensive in the payys — are an investment. Their value has jumped by 400% since the 1990s. Over the last five years, they have brought an annual debt of 9.1%, according to Gr oupe A GÉCO, a Gérard Rousseau team had an eye on one of the lands that the National Bank purchased in Lac-SaintJean.

"I wasn't playing with equal arms. I would have had to borrow them to buy!" GÉRARD ROUSSEAU: NICOLAS MESL Y 36 { 1 September 2013 the news of multidisciplineair consultants from Quebec City. C的 is much more than the rations of T-bills and much less risky than the Stock Exchange.

This was what attracted the National Bank, which, following the 2008 financial crisis, was looking for secure investments for its pension fund. "We were looking for an efficient farm to save money and to boost our finances on the Chicago Stock Exchange," Claude Br eton, director of the public service at the National Bank. The international price of cereals has been beating all the records for 40 years.

The company was keen to plant and harvest from the beginning, and was able to sell its stores at speed. "It was the most efficient agricultural machinery on the market, equipped with GPS technology. Its representative was 2 ,5 million dollars in cash! It was the most important and important of all", says S tephane Ouellet, manager of the concession - naire John Deere d'Alma.

The arrival of the Banque at Lac-Saint-Jean was audible by some. "Many farmers have been looking for a better way for years," says Alain Lema y. "The difficulty of accessing the property is as much as Quebec farmers are the most indebted in Canada, the North American region," notes Guy Debailleul, a colleague of CIRAN O and a professor at the Department of Agri-Food Economics and Consumer Sciences at Laval University. "In this story, new models of management are emerging, which have simple investment in the funder to raise it through the cooperative.

"We, we buy land and we rent it to young farmers," says R oger Gauthier, of T roisRivières. Roger Ga uthier has been working on n 2 010 A griTerra, the first agricultural investment fund to be held in Quebec on the day. Former primer of a farm business, he says he has been working on his long-standing clientele to find "win-win" solutions. AgriTerra, a limited company, has a portfolio of $10 million, from which investors can hire more than 25,000 and a million dollars in pen - in the form of a fund to finance a project.

The average income is 3,600 hectar es de terres in Quebec, N ouveau-Brunswick and, most recently, in S askatchewan. Revenues are derived from the leasing of the land. The increase in the value of shares follows that of the land. "In 2012 we obtained a 15% debt payment for our investors," says Roger Gauthier.

Clément Gagnon, of Agricultural Artenaires S.E.C., a second fund for Quebec investment, is the time that within five years 115,000 hectar es have been put into sale in Quebec. At a monthly price of $10,000 per hectar, these territories represent the sum of $1.15 billion. Its limited partnership is the prev est of a $50 million fund raising from institutional investors to obtain 65 agricultural sites.

The businessman of the Lander hears the fair and cultivated in partena - riat has been given the pre-eminent responsibilities, so we use the co n s of his agronomist team, and two established produc tion workers. The stimuli are in the range of 5.6% to 6.6%, based on the increase in the price of land and food.

"Young farmers would not have to re-emerge the capital and interest of the loans," he says. "This business formula for the interest in the investment would take just 2.45 million to buy a medium-sized dairy farm in Quebec for the quota and land! Land is a good investment: its value has increased by 400% since the 1990s.

The annual yield, for the last five years, has been 9.1%! FERME : GARRY BLACK / MASTERFILE ; FRANÇOIS GENDRON : CléMENT ALLARD / LA PRESSE CANADA TERRITOIRE LES FINANCIERES PASSENT TO... News September 1, 2013 } 37 but we favour the prpriété de la terre e", says Alain A udet, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Fédération de la rèvel agricole du Québec, which group 2,000 members aged 1 6 to 39. "The terre, c ́est dans notre ADN", adds this young prprietaire d'une ferme porcine en Beauce.

The Union of Agricultural Producers (UPA), the then - a union responsible for defending the interests of farmers, is concerned about the existence of a farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm farm

The farmer is very hard at feeding the world. The investment fund is very bad for his shareholdings. From the moment that blocks of land have been negotiated for financial resources through the intermediary of the bear, he will be able to pay for food." The Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, Fr. Gendr on, is preparing a draft law to amend the Act respecting the protection of land and agricultural activities, "to better protect our farms, not the agricultural area and also to prevent the seizure of land by the land," says his attaché, M axime Coutur e.

This proposal for a law has been adopted to make it more accessible to smallholder farmers to purchase small lots in order to facilitate the re-establishment and to improve production. The Quebec City objective is not to prevent investment funds from buying land but to limit their appetite.

This proposal, which also served to discuss in the fall, provides for a purchase limit of 1,000 hectars per year, the obligation to reduce the cost of living in Quebec and to be a Canadian citizen. "If a buyer signs a declaration that he was living in Quebec and that he was a farmer, he will not be prevented from coming to his place!" says M axime Couture. "To channel the appetite of foreign investors like those in this case, the UP A proposes the creation of a cient farm development organization in Quebec (S ADAQ), a collective investment initiative.

This public company has been able to provide a debt of 4% to 5% per year. "It has financed by Quebec and has been involved in public investment, i.e. the Caisse de dépôt, the Caisse Desjar dins or private investment, to buy and restore wasteland land by means of a large scale", says Fr ançois L

It allows regional actors to decide which agricultural sector they are in order to avoid social conflicts." The ADAQ has a priority to acquire a land, at the heart of the market. The latter then was rented or sold to young farmers who wanted to embark on a project which would re-spect the regional car actère (beef, milk, etc.). "The decision [to create this public society or not] was taken after the adoption of the draft laws this autumn," said Minister Gendron.

At Desjardins, we say we are open to different possibilities. "We hope that the land will be sold within five years, 115 000 hectares. Minister François Gendron (below) would look for ways to facilitate the purchase of small lots by small farmers. FERME: GARRY BLACK / MASTERFILE; FRANÇOIS GENDRON: CléMENT ALLARD / LA PRESSE CANADIENÉ 38 { 1 September 2013 l ́actualité dans les mains de prôteurs ou de coopératives agricoles .

Far from us being the idea of coming to Earthlords!" said Nathalie Genest, a press relations advisor at the establishment. And the adventure of the National Bank in Lake Saint John, in all this? The latter barely reaps angre agre, the BN announced in no vember 2012 that it was entering its territories! In March, it was auctioning its two combine harvesters, two very recent actors, a gigantic seeder and two herses.

The National Bank's losses on this machinery were not in fact Chinese money or Qatar, but the National Bank's pension fund was still in sale in the agropark of its municipality.

The money that has been appreciated to de-elope this one and create jobs... When we talk to him about the adventure of the BN, Bernar d Lepage, co-pr of the Olofee Herm, in S ant-Félicien, bursts to laugh. "A seed of 4 3 p ieds [ 13 m ] equipped with a G PS, it has been reduced like a mini-Boeing 7 47 . Even I am out of date.

The B'anque employee called my son at a time of 2 5 f œu d'irirant l'été p ir our s'ir qu'être qu'être à qu'être à qu'être à à qu'être à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à à Ã

From a commercial point of view, Bernar d Lepage, the second lender in the agricultural world in Quebec, after the Desjar dins caisse, played very well in competition with his main clientele. "The BN could not afford to pay 10% or 15% of its customers." Claude Br eton, of the National Bank, admits: "We have badly worked out not the business model and social issues." He insists: the establishment was not in Lac-Saint-Jean to speculate.

The National Bank is currently negotiating the final details of its farm sale in Pangea t erres agr iciaries, a private investor's company founded in 2012 by businessmen Charles Sirois, who made a fortune in the telecoms - munications, and Ser ge F ortin, son of farm prducers who worked at Teleglobe. Pangea e xploite already some 2 400 hectar es in Estrie and dan La naudière. "The prime of the National Bank is structured to form coen - tres tres a vec tre gr oops of local prducers, d have been operational.

The family farms were secured and the children were favoured", says Serge Fortin. The family farms were completely independent of the family.

Bernard Lepage , of the Olofée Herme F , is ill - will all sceptical of the start of the Pangea. The National Bank has sown a social debate — which is only beginning — on the size of the farms and the future property of the Quebec garden. QuI peuT achETER unE TERRE au QuébE c ? Nothing prevents a bank, a large investor or who is buying agricultural land in Quebec.

If the owner is to change this vocation, for example, to build condos, he will have to obtain the approval of the committee for the protection of agricultural territory, which is responsible for the application of the law on the protection of agricultural territory and activities and the law on the acquisition of agricultural land by non-residents. Québec intends to give a bit of weight to these two laws as early as this fall. The BN is equipped in large measure.

This 13-metre seeder, equipped with a GPS, behaves like a mini-Boeing, laughs Bernard Lepage, co-owner of the Olofée Farm. SEMOIR : NICOLAS MESL Y ; MOISSON : PAULO WHITAKER / REUTERS THE FINANCIALS PASS TO THE FERME !TERRITOIRE l'actualité 1 September 2013 } 39 A little bit across the planet, large land surfaces are bought or leased by foreigners. But the response begins to organize. by Valérie Borde The race to the lands of the world T raveurs of Quebec, v ous have been since last year priprietaires of more than 2,000 km2 of agricultural land in the U.S., A ustralie, Latin America and Eur ope de l'Es !

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, which manages in particular the assets of the Régie des rtes, placed 250 million dollars in 2012 in a global agricultural company, alongside other Canadian r & tal funds, amé - caines and étéoises.

The 2008 financial crisis , the surge in the price of basic food and the sharp rise in petrole prices (which gave the advantage to biofuels) launched a rush without preceeding the world 's regions . To feed the populations, we have managed to prepare for potentially profitable investments.

This investment in the global agricultural society TIAA - CREF Global A griculture has a revers. It involves Quebecers in a global phenomenon that is of concern to both the world Bank and the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture (FAO): the purchase or rental of superfied crops by foreign interests.

SEMOIR : NICOLAS MESL Y ; MOISSON : PAULO WHITAKER / REUTERS 40 { 1 September 2013 l'actualité ture. For some years they have been buying fields and meadows, in Africa, in Ustralia or in the United States. In China , India and other countries, the growth of food needs has been increasing, and in the past few years, the need for double-buttering has been increasing, to very low levels of cultivation where climatic conditions are more favourable than in the United States.

All over the world, financial institutions such as the Caisse de dépôt also turn to these areas which are likely to be a source of rapid growth.

In 2011, the World Bank welcomed the fact that international scale agreements were reaching 45 million hectar es de terre agricoles in 2008 and 2009, i.e. the size of the S uede or the Cali - fornie. The non-governmental organization Oxfam is time that the phenomenon extends to a c inq f i es pl us grede! In rich countries, the purchase of land by foreign nationals is limited by control mechanisms, such as the Quebec Agricultural Land Protection Act.

In the developing countries, these foreign capitals are good... in theory. They should be able to improve the co nditions of life by creating jobs and reducing the wasteland which is more produc tive, according to the National Bank for Access to Land, an ONG established in Rome, has been able to list all the public funds in a database, the Land M atrix, which came to refer the matter to. "There is a good deal of speculation.

The same thing is true of the fact that the people of the region have been in the hands of the coalition's di rective, M adiodio N iasse.

Even the world trade has no "win-win" control to be found, but it is not clear whether the world trade is going to be more successful than the world trade.

In M adagascar, the Signatur e d a concorde entre le gouvernement et la société korean D aewoo covering more than one million hectares of land in the agricultural sector, which was attributed to the 2009 riots, which killed more than 100 people and resulted in LAOS case in Laos, anthropologist Karen m cAllister of the University of M cGill, discovered how the lives of the northern mountain peoples were disrupted by the massive influx of Chinese rubber-producing companies, in which more than a fifth of the arable land is controlled by foreign interests, the Government has redesigned the mapping of the territory to strip villages of their arable land.

The Lao government introduced a moratorium on this type of contract in 2011."But what is happening is not a good thing for the Lao government," says Klaus Deininger, who is saving money for this institution. "Vulnerable markets have been opened up from the threat to foreign investors, after the World Bank and the FAO.

These controversies are the agents of corruption, social conflicts and the misuse of natural resources. Jun Borr is trying to analyse the r e r e r e n g e n u n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g o n g n g a n g a n g a n g a n g a n g n g a n g a n g a n g a n g a n g n g n g n g a n g a n g a n g a n g n g n g a n g n g n g a n g n g n g n g n g n g a n g n g n g a n g n g n g a n g a n g a n g a n g a n g a n g e n g a n g n g n g n g n g e n g e n g e n g e n g e n g a n g e n g a n g a n g a n g a n a n a n a n a n g a n g a n g a n a n a n g a n g a n g a n a n a n a n a n a n g a n a n a n g a n g a n a n a n a n a n a n g a n g a n a n g a n g a n g a n g a n g n g e n g e n g e n g e n g e n a n g a n g a n g a n g a n g a n a

The main concerns differ depending on the size of the investors, the target countries, the cultural groups, the local sector and the local sector.

Last year, D aewoo, who was cultivating oil palms and maize for the South Korean economy, o ficely abandoned his project. Increasingly, civil societies resisted. Dominique C aouette, a political scientist at the University of M ontreal, is one of hundreds of researchers and activists who are trying to use local markets. D ans nine states in Africa en ancophone, the researcher builds a network of surveillances has been developing organizations pa ysannes.

The network allows for detailed data exchange on the contrôts passed in these countries by telephone. The mobilization of opponents and media reports are beginning to cool down the back of the company. "We seem to be sitting at a beginning of a slowing down of the phenomenon," says Madiodio Niasse. Recently, such pays as Tanzania or Mozambique have introduced more con tinuous laws to limit foreign investment on the wrong side.

"Investors create local subsidiaries or buy land in small lots," says Jun Borras. "This sector resembles real estate 40 years ago or timber work 20 years ago, cr oit J ose Mina ya. "This new sector is a class of active people who need more than a lot of money to get their investment done.

"One day, the world's forests have certified as wood is today." "The world's forests are also growing, as the world's forests are growing in partnership with Quebec," said its spokesperson, M axime C hagnon. "The moment we have been able to put forward a deposit fund has no intention of di rectively guiding Quebec territories. Each market is different, has different laws and different social acceptabilitys."

In December 2011, the Dutch milk fund ABP, which signed the agreement on the vestis - which was responsible for the matter, referred to the Commission for a preliminary ruling from a planta -tion fund in the Czech Republic after newspapers had been brought to the attention of the Commission. In its opinion, ABP specified that it should be chosen its representative for its good repute and social and environmental responsibility, and should be seen.

The Commission has also been able to draw up a report on the implementation of the Community's structural policy in the field of agriculture and fisheries.

In 2011, eight financial institutions in the United States, which manage the $1,300 million asset pool, agreed on principles for responsible investment in agricultural areas. TIAA - CREF Global A griculture, in which the Caisse de dépôt et placement a in vesti, is one of the signatories. "The investment of a C aisse in the agricultural sector by TIAA -CREF is a major contributor to the agricultural sector.

The Bank has a new asset class which was better understood in the last year by La Fa o and has issued a code of conduct "for responsible governance of the State-owned schemes". The G8 has succeeded in the question. WIJNANDS / GETTY IMAGES; R. C.: KAIROS PHOTOS / PAUL JEFFREY A ROUTE FOR THE WATER The land is moving to foreign interests, and water with them!

In the Congo, water irrigating the agricultural land of foreigners corresponds, in volume, to almost twice what would be necessary to provide a balanced regime for each inhabitant.