评论
打印
To investors, farms are effectively just commercial property assets like office buildings, warehouses, or retail precincts.
对于投资者来说，农场实际上只是诸如办公楼、仓库或零售区之类的商业地产资产。
They can purchase the real estate and use it to run their own business on the land.
他们可以购买房地产，并用它在土地上经营自己的业务。
Or they can rent it out to actual farmers, like they would rent out a floor of an office building to a law firm.
或者他们可以将其出租给真正的农民，就像他们将办公楼的一层出租给律师事务所一样。
The difference with farmland is that even in bad markets when companies are closing down offices and people are spending less in retail centers, they still need to eat.
农田的不同之处在于，即使在市场不景气、公司关闭办公室、人们在零售中心的支出减少的情况下，他们仍然需要吃饭。
And so farms have been seen as a largely uncorrelated asset class to traditional real estate for a long time.
因此，长期以来，农场一直被视为与传统房地产基本不相关的资产类别。
Ray Kroc was the man who scaled the McDonald's business from a small family operation into the multinational company it is today day.
雷·克洛克将麦当劳从一家小型家族企业打造成如今的跨国公司。
The success really started when an associate of his Harry Sonneborn told him that he wasn't in the burger business, he was in the real estate business.
成功真正开始于他的一位同事哈里·索恩伯恩(Harry Sonneborn)告诉他，他不是在做汉堡生意，而是在做房地产生意。
The restaurants that sit on top of the land are just cash flow generators but the real money was to be made in owning the land itself. Or at least that's how the story goes.
坐落在土地上的餐厅只是现金流生成器，但真正的钱是拥有土地本身。或者至少故事是这样的。
Today McDonald's only owns about 45% of the land it operates on worldwide.
如今，麦当劳仅拥有其在全球经营的土地的45%左右。
As smaller restaurants like those found inside shopping malls, train stations and airports have become just as common as the traditional standalone operations, farmland is really the same.
随着小型餐厅（如购物中心、火车站和机场内的餐厅）变得与传统的独立经营一样普遍，农田实际上也是如此。
Investors don't care about farming. They are only interested in the value of the land itself.
投资者不关心农业。他们只对土地本身的价值感兴趣。
The profitability of the farm that operates on the land just helps to pay the loans they use to buy it.
在土地上经营的农场的盈利能力只是帮助他们偿还购买土地的贷款。
And that's the second reason why farmland has become so popular amongst large investors.
这就是农田在大型投资者中如此受欢迎的第二个原因。
In another trick from the private equity playbook, the thing that has made farmland so attractive is that it's a business and real estate rolled into one, which makes it perfect for a leverage buyout.
私募股权策略的另一个技巧是，农田如此有吸引力的原因在于它是商业和房地产的结合体，这使其成为杠杆收购的完美选择。
An investor with $100 million could buy just one single large farm and happily rent it out for a month ROI.
拥有1亿美元的投资者可以只购买一个大型农场，然后愉快地将其出租，获得一个月的投资回报。
Or they could take their $100 million and use it to effectively put down payments on five farms and then borrow the remaining $400 million to have a portfolio of land five times as large.
他们也可以拿出1亿美元，支付5家农场的首付款，然后借入剩余的4亿美元，拥有五倍大的土地投资组合。
With a bit of cost cutting and some investments into technology, the farm should be able to cover the repayments on this debt.
通过削减一些成本和投资一些技术，农场应该能够偿还这笔债务。
And now the investors could stand a profit five times as much if their land appreciates in value by the same amount.
现在，如果土地升值相同的金额，投资者可以获得五倍的利润。
This is effectively a leverage buyout, but the difference is that it can sometimes be hard for businesses to borrow money.
这实际上是杠杆收购，但不同之处在于企业有时很难借钱。
But because most of a farm's value is in its land, it's a lot easier to get leverage because the land itself can be used as a collateral.
但由于农场的大部分价值在于土地，因此获得杠杆要容易得多，因为土地本身可以用作抵押品。
Counterintuitively, this highly leverage investment structure can actually be less risky than the more conservative investor who just pays all cash.
与直觉相反，这种高杠杆投资结构实际上比只支付全额现金的更保守的投资者风险更小。
Just like a leverage buyout, each individual farm is responsible for its own $80 million share of the loan.
就像杠杆收购一样，每个农场都要对自己8000万美元的贷款份额负责。
So if one is managed poorly or is impacted by a natural disaster, it can just go bankrupt and only lose the investor $20 million in the situation of a total ride-off.
因此，如果管理不善或受到自然灾害的影响，它可能会破产，在完全撤资的情况下，投资者只会损失2000万美元。
That's still a lot of money, but it's only a fifth of what the investor would be risking if they put their entire investment into one unleveraged farm.
这仍然是一大笔钱，但这只是投资者将全部投资投入一个无杠杆农场所承担风险的五分之一。
Now this gives sophisticated investors a significant advantage over traditional family farmers who do simply own their own single farm. And that's further fueled this investment trend.
现在，这让经验丰富的投资者比只拥有单一农场的传统家庭农民具有显著优势。这进一步推动了这一投资趋势。
According to data from the Department of Agriculture, farmland values have reached all-time highs.
根据农业部的数据，农田价值已达到历史最高水平。
The average acre of farmland is worth almost double what it was in the farmland bubble of the 1980s even after adjusting for inflation.
即使经过通货膨胀调整后，平均一英亩农田的价值也几乎是20世纪80年代农田泡沫时期的两倍。
The business of farming has been harder than ever over the last decade in most parts of the country.
在过去十年中，在全国大部分地区，农业经营比以往任何时候都更加困难。
There have been droughts, natural disasters, ballooning chemical costs, monopolistic behaviors from equipment suppliers, increasingly expensive water rights rules, and tightening access to credit for regular borrowing.
干旱、自然灾害、化学品成本膨胀、设备供应商的垄断行为、日益昂贵的水权规则以及定期借贷的信贷渠道收紧。
It is a problem that's been plaguing America's farmers. The tractors, planters and other gear they rely on can sometimes break down.
这是一直困扰美国农民的问题。他们所依赖的拖拉机、播种机等设备有时会发生故障。
But in many cases they are not able or even permitted to make repairs.
但在很多情况下，他们无法甚至不被允许进行维修。
Farm bankruptcies are down from their peak in 2019, but that has been helped a lot by generous government support and low interest rates.
农场破产率已从2019年的峰值下降，政府的慷慨支持和低利率对此起到了很大的帮助。
As the support program have been wound back and rates have risen, normal farmers are starting to realize the reality that their business model just isn't viable anymore.
随着支持计划的缩减和利率的上升，普通农民开始意识到他们的商业模式不再可行的现实。
According to a report by Time Magazine, before these disruptions, more than half of all farmers had lost money every year since 2013.
据《时代》杂志报道，在这些中断之前，自2013年以来，每年有超过一半的农民都在亏损。
Smallscale farming is running on tighter margins than ever, while land values are at an all-time high.
小规模农业的利润率比以往任何时候都要低，而土地价值却创下了历史新高。
So big institutional buyers have had no shortage of smaller sellers who are being forced to or are willingly deciding to get out at a good price.
因此，大型机构买家并不缺乏被迫或自愿决定以好价退出的小卖家。
Now the image of good old-fashioned American farmers giving up their land as some billionaires or faceless investment fund is not very appealing.
现在，传统美国农民将土地转让给亿万富翁或不知名投资基金的形象并不吸引人。
But unfortunately, that's the way most businesses have gone over the last century. If anything, farming is just now catching up.
但不幸的是，这是过去一个世纪大多数企业的发展方式。如果说有什么不同的话，那就是农业现在才刚刚迎头赶上。
Because the march of progress has been slowed down by a lot of governmental programs and subsidies that have kept one of the last widespread family businesses operating longer than they otherwise would have.
因为许多政府计划和补贴减缓了进步的步伐，这些计划和补贴使最后几家广泛存在的家族企业之一的运营时间比原本更长。
Bigger is better and the market is starting to reflect this reality. Pasture land which is land for grazing livestock, as opposed to crop land which is for growing rows of crops, has increased in value even faster.
越大越好，市场开始反映这一现实。与用于种植成排作物的农田相比，牧场增值更快。
This land is a lot less carefully managed than crop land and it doesn't need to be on a nice flat ground to allow for mechanical harvesting.
牧场的管理远不如农田那么精细，也不需要平坦的地面来进行机械收割，
So it's worth substantially less per acre but its value has been growing faster.
因此每英亩的价值要低得多，但它的增值速度更快。
And this type of land makes up a majority share of the portfolios of the people who are actually the largest land owners in America.
这类土地占美国实际最大土地所有者投资组合的大部分份额。
The Emmerson family, who currently own 2.4 million acres of land in California, Oregon and Washington, primarily use it for lumber farming. The remaining top 10 are mainly cattle ranchers.
埃默森家族目前在加利福尼亚州、俄勒冈州和华盛顿州拥有240万英亩土地，主要用于木材种植。其余前10名主要是牧场主。
Bill Gates on the other hand only owns about a tenth of this with about 275,000 acres, which makes him the 42nd largest private land owner in America.
而比尔盖茨只拥有其中的十分之一，约275000英亩，这使他成为美国第42大私人土地所有者。
It also puts him behind Jeff Bezos who has 420,000 acres, according to the annual land report survey. So do better, Bill.
根据年度土地报告调查，这也使他落后于拥有420000英亩土地的杰夫·贝索斯。比尔，加油好好干。
Now right there is probably the least obvious and most underestimated reason why farms have become such a popular investment so quickly.
现在，这可能是农场如此迅速成为受欢迎的投资的最不明显和最被低估的原因。
Billionaires and even institutional investors are not above the temptations of human nature.
亿万富翁甚至机构投资者都无法摆脱人性的诱惑。
Farmland values have been spiking and within these small circles nobody wants to be left out of the big new investment opportunity. Owning land is like owning anything.
农田价值一直在飙升，在这些小圈子里，没有人愿意被排除在新的重大投资机会之外。拥有土地就像拥有任何东西一样。
Some people just want to see the number go up. If you were a billionaire and you could ignore the potential implications of owning that much of a vital resource as an asset line, you got to admit.
有些人只是想看到这个数字上升。如果你是亿万富翁，你可以忽略拥有如此多重要资源作为资产的潜在影响，你必须承认。
It would be pretty cool to own more land than Puerto Rico. As money has moved into the market, it has further increased prices, making people even more excited to claim their own share of America. It's like crypto.
拥有比波多黎各更多的土地会很酷。随着资金进入市场，它进一步推高了价格，让人们更加兴奋地宣称自己在美国占有一席之地。它就像加密货币。
Only instead of doing absolutely nothing, it feeds the country. Farmers don't have that much control over the market price of their produce, because there has typically been so much competition and only a small handful of buyers.
只是它不是什么都不做，而是养活了这个国家。农民对其农产品的市场价格没有太大的控制权，因为通常竞争非常激烈，而且只有少数买家。
One of the biggest implications of this farmland consolidation is that this dynamic could reverse.
这次农田合并的最大影响之一是，这种动态可能会逆转。
