An interview with commodities guru, Jim Rogers, in Newsweek, April 11,2009 :

“Does the future growth of China factor into your bullishness?
China is tiny in comparison to the U.S. economy. Anyone who thinks that the commodities story is driven by China needs to do more homework. In the 1970s, everyone was in recession, and you still had declining supply [in oil] and higher prices. Asia wasn’t even in the game then. China was run by Mao. But now, of course, there are those 3 billion people in Asia who are in the game. It’s just another factor.

Are we going to see another food-price spike sometime soon?
Definitely. I think you should move back to Indiana and marry a farmer. There are times in history when the money lenders have been in charge, and we just came through one of those periods. But it wasn’t always that way. Wall Street was a backwater in the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, and it will be again. Farmers are going to be the ones driving Lamborghinis, and the traders are going to have to learn to drive tractors.

What about technological advances? Another green revolution could easily drive prices down …
Sure, there’s always something that will end a bull market. But if you think we’re anywhere near that point now, think again. Even if everyone in the world decided to put a windmill on their head, it’s going to take decades for that to really change things. In the meantime, you’ve got to put your money somewhere. And as we’re already seeing, even the value of cash can be wiped out.

I guess that’s one reason the Chinese are so worried …
Well, if I were running the Chinese central bank, I’d buy oil, wheat and zinc. Which is what folks there are already doing.”

Update:

Jim Rogers is involved with two direct farmland investment funds: Agcapita (Canada) and Agrifirma (Brazil), according to a comment.

Comment

I agree with Rogers on this and always have.

Unfortunately, until recently it was hard to invest in commodities without going through a trading platform. Now you can buy and sell commodities as ETF’s, although their risks and performance can and will vary from the underlying commodity, so you can end up being in the right sector and still losing money.

But nonetheless, trading will work for a while. Who knows what happens after.

After that, yes, you might think of getting some nice little fruit or veggie farm, where you can stomp around, pull beets out of the ground and milk your pet goat…

At least, that’s the fantasy.

Meanwhile, however, you could do worse than get a rental property near the water. Where is the question.   Forbes tells us that Florida is one of the worst places to buy now

But don’t believe everything in Forbes.

When you see block houses for $50-60k near water and when your hear the Obamites are going to be putting money (or rather credit) into infrastructure, and and every effort is being made to reflate the real estate bubble and create jobs programs in select cities, I’m afraid follow the trend makes sense…

Just make sure the numbers work and your horizon is more than 5 -7 years.