Investment Bankers with Wings

A nugget (sic) in a report on agricultural deals worldwide caught my eye, and it’s not an April Fool’s joke. Goldman Sachs, one of Wall Street’s best-known investment banks, acquired control of 10 intensive poultry farms in China through an outlay of about $300 million. Goldman Sachs is one of the large banks kept afloat recently by billions of dollars in U.S. government funds. Does that mean U.S. taxpayer dollars subsidized China-based factory farms? Even if the connection is not that direct, what’s one to make of wealthy private equity firms expanding the market for meat, milk, and eggs from industrial facilities? The website Business Insider called it “Goldman’s next brilliant play.” Irony not included. Goldman isn’t running the farms itself — that’s outsourced — but it will control the prices. That’s no joke. Read more about the growing number of “land grabs” for food production by rich countries and investors in poorer ones and check out a map showing some of the latest “deals.”

Photo courtesy of China Says No (wordpress.com)