Mongabay | 3 February 2021
by Caio de Freitas Paes (Translated by Roberto Cataldo)
In the far west of Brazil’s Bahia state, sprawling soybean plantations extend from the edges of the highways right up to the horizon. The region is considered Brazil’s new grain frontier, its roads bustling with trucks hauling agrochemicals, cattle, and tons of soybeans. The 2019-2020 harvest was the second best in the history of Bahia: more than 6 million tons of soybeans were produced in the state. That kind of output has attracted major companies such as SLC Agrícola, one of the largest grain producers in Brazil.
Trader Cargill, pension fund TIAA linked to land grabs in Brazil’s Cerrado
Global commodities giant Cargill continues to buy soybeans from a farm in Brazil that cultivates on illegally acquired and deforested land.
The Parceiro farm in Bahia state, owned by SLC Agrícola, has been implicated in a $200 million land-grabbing scheme being investigated by Brazilian authorities.
Also implicated in the case is the U.S. teachers’ pension fund TIAA, an investor in one of the parcels of illegally acquired land that effectively overlaps with SLC’s farm.
Cargill, which has a zero-deforestation commitment for its supply chain from the Cerrado, says it placed no restrictions on soybean purchases from SLC in 2020; it bought more than a quarter of the grower’s crop the previous year.
Federal agency deems TIAA’s land holdings in Brazil legally null and void
A technical report by Brazil’s land reform agency INCRA has deemed TIAA’s land titles in Brazil to be legally null and void. This conclusion is discussed in a new report by Rede Social, the Lawyer’s Association for Rural Workers (AATR), and GRAIN. TIAA (The Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America) is the largest international farmland investor operating in Brazil’s Cerrado. It invest in rural properties through a complex web of intermediary companies, which includes capital investments in Radar S/A. Radar was originally set up as a joint venture with Brazilian sugar company Cosan S/A. TIAA ultimately holds 100 percent of the preferred shares and has provided 97 percent of Radar’s capital.
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LONDON (Reuters) - Some of the world s biggest sovereign wealth funds and public pension funds are getting caught in the escalating tensions over technology between the United States and China, a Reuters analysis of their filings data and public disclosures show.
They range from Norway and Singapore s giant sovereign wealth funds to Switzerland s central bank and the $1.1 trillion U.S. TIAA, founded over a century ago by Andrew Carnegie as the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America.
U.S. investors were banned from owning stakes in more than 40 Chinese firms viewed as having military links in a series of moves since November, as outgoing U.S. President Donald Trump sought to cement his hardline policy against Beijing.