University of Iowa faculty rebuke farmland investors for fueling land grabs and corporate takeover of agriculture
IOWA CITY, IOWA – On Tuesday, April 27, the University of Iowa Faculty Senate voted 42 to 7 to pass a resolution calling on the university to hold the financial services provider TIAA accountable for its investments in global farmland. Worth almost $8 billion, TIAA’s farmland investments have been linked to land grabbing and deforestation in Brazil and to corporate concentration, environmental destruction by monocrop industrial agriculture, and factory farming in the United States.
The Faculty Senate cast a resounding vote for the resolution even after the CEO and Director of Sustainability from TIAA’s farmland subsidiary, Westchester, gave virtual presentations to the Executive Council of the Faculty Senate. Faculty cited concerns that their retirement funds are being used to fund agricultural practices that are contributing to human rights abuses, accele