The Handbook of Global Agricultural Markets

Luc Nijs is the founder, chairman and group CEO of The Talitha Group, a global merchant banking group and global investment holding. Before founding The Talitha Group he was with Arthur Andersen and Deloitte. Luc further provides extensive advisory, executive coaching and financial training for corporations, investment funds and financial institutions and is active in over 160 countries worldwide on a wide array of strategy, investments and capital allocation issues. He held academic positions in international taxation, finance and capital markets at UAMS/IPO (Belgium), Instituto de Empresa (Spain) and most recently the Aizkraukles Banka Chair in investment banking, private equity and entrepreneurial finance at the Riga Graduate School of Law (Latvia). Luc is fluent in Dutch, English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish and is competent in Russian and Chinese. Luc previously authored the best-selling book 'Shaping Tomorrow's Marketplace: Investment Philosophies for Emerging Markets and a Semi-Globalized World' as well as the equally if not more appreciated 'Mezzanine Finance: Tools, Applications and Total Return'.

1. Introduction 2. The Investible Agricultural Space 3. Climate Change and Agriculture 4. Agricultural Risk Management & Insurance 5. Biofuels and Agriculture 5b. Biofuels and the Sustainability Conundrum 6. Financing the Agricultural Firm 7. Farmland as an Investible Asset Class 7b. Farmland 7c. Land Expectation Value and Timberland Valuation 8. Advanced Technologies and Agriculture 9. Challenges in Agricultural Production and Natural Resources Management 10. Sustainability of Agricultural Productivity Growth 11. Commodity Derivative Markets 11b. Trading Agricultural Commodities 11c. Speculation on (Agricultural) Commodity Markets & Financialization of Commodity Price Formation 12. The Global Water Challenge 13. Future Agricultural Dynamics