As portfolios continue to show volatility, many investors are beginning to investigate investment alternatives, with an area of ??particular interest to agricultural investments, or investments specifically agricultural land.
I think now is particularly relevant to mention that appears so often used and seldom heard investment advice, “Past performance is no guarantee of future performance and investors should of course be prudent in the use of historical data to make investment decisions. “
Now the reasons for investing in real assets that produce basic necessities for life are solid. Population growth and increasing demand for the income unit, while urbanization, water scarcity, climate change and a number of other factors to suppress the offer, and these two major trends are converging to push up prices and with them food, farm income and capital value of the assets of farmland.
These, in my opinion, are the reasons to invest in agriculture, and although the retrospective history and can demonstrate how these assets and the markets have done under certain conditions, the smart investor should perhaps look to the future, not in the past to determine the likely performance of their holdings.
As seen recently in the stock markets around the world, the time frame used to provide data for predicting future events is crucial. Instead of simply using the largest data set available, one is better able perhaps to use data from periods where economic conditions are more likely to be characteristic of future conditions.
A good example that has relevance to investment in agriculture is depressed commodity prices during the 1980′s, when a decline in food demand in developing countries resulted in the accumulation of large stocks of grain . If you believe in the future, the demand for developing countries is likely to fall, then the data from this period would be most appropriate for the use of projecting future prices of commodities such as you feel the same set of conditions that prevail. In this set of circumstances and to take this set of data, projects that the prices of raw materials and agricultural prices would fall.
If you believe that demand for commodities such as food will grow, as it did in the 1970′s, then one would expect that prices of raw materials and agricultural prices rising as they did then, based on the assumption that the same set of circumstances in terms of supply and demand will ultimately prevail. Use of this piece of historical data only lead him to believe that agriculture is a strong buy, and farmland assets investment will grow in value.
Again, when making its own decision on if you feel the farmland values ??rise or fall (probably will both over time), you should base your answer on if you feel that the demand is likely to increase and if we have the capacity to increase supply accordingly.
Tags: agricultural investments, real assets, retrospective history, smart investor, water scarcity