Around 900 venture capital investment funds manage a total of more than 100,000 million euros in farmland in the Iberian Peninsula, according to data from the Coordinator of Farmers and Livestock Organizations (COAG).
The coordinator states that the arrival of these funds is “booming” and that since 2019 the purchase and sale of rural properties has increased “significantly”, by 20%. In 2024, according to COAG, the ‘uberization’ process of the Spanish countryside has accelerated and with it “the landing of speculative investment funds.”
This trend towards entry into the investment fund sector is caused, according to COAG, by an increasing concentration of production and the existence of oligopolies that monopolize a very important part of the Iberian agricultural market.
Specifically, only 6.6% of companies in the sector monopolize the increase that agricultural income has experienced (10.8%) during 2024, since this percentage of companies monopolizes, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, 42% of the value of the production of the Spanish countryside.
The general secretary of COAG, Miguel Padilla, regrets that in this context the beneficiaries of the increase in agricultural income end up being the “shareholders of Wisconsin or the City of London” and the small and medium-sized farmers and ranchers are the losers.
In addition, Padilla points out that the growing concentration causes increasing barriers to entry into the market for “young people” and denounces that the “current social and professional model” of farmers and ranchers is in danger, although he affirms that agriculture “has a great future in Spain.”
Opposition to major trade agreements
The main organizations of farmers and ranchers, including COAG, show their rejection of the trade agreement between the EU and Mercosur for representing the “definitive blow” for European agriculture and livestock and ask that the Spanish Government not ratify this agreement, as they have already defended in several protests in recent months.
Likewise, COAG demands that the free trade agreement between the European Union and Morocco be suspended for violating international law by violating the principles of self-determination and the relative effect of treaties, by not giving their consent to the people of Western Sahara, as as the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled.
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