As a person whose work-life as a teacher and as a public policy analyst has been grounded in anthropology, I am very alarmed at the way in which my retirement funds are being used by the investment firm TIAA (formerly Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association—College Retirement Equities Fund) to undermine rural communities in the United States and many other countries through land speculation and land-grabbing.
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NEW YORK, NY – On Thursday a coalition of environmental, human rights and family farm organizations delivered a letter with more than 100,000 signatures to pension fund management company TIAA, expressing concerns over the company’s investments in farmland and palm oil.
The organizations are demanding that TIAA disclose the locations of its farms and its investments in destructive palm oil companies, and that these investments be stopped.
TIAA is one of the largest global investors in farmland, with more than 1.5 million acres in the United States and around the world worth $8 billion under
...(Washington D.C. March 21, 2018) The World Bank is financing a land titling program in the Brazilian State of Piauí, where large areas of land have been grabbed from local communities and illegally occupied by big agribusiness companies. If the program continues unchecked, it will further open the door for a dangerous rush of “legalized” land grabbing, affecting thousands of families and destroying an important ecosystem.
In Piauí alone, 11,000 farmers face eviction, as 4 million hectares of land are being
...Champaign County is the home of the University of Illinois and some of the richest farmland in the world. It is also home to Westchester Farm Services, the TIAA subsidiary that manages most of their farmland in the United States.
Tracking down Westchester staff proved quite difficult. Prior to my visit, I asked to meet with them to learn about their farming practices and was informed that everyone had pretty much left for the winter.