Crain’s – When Roger Betz is not helping farmers as a Michigan State University Extension farm management educator for Southwest Michigan, he tends a few acres in Eaton County near Lansing. Every year, he buys a little more land, getting ready to retire to do what he loves.
But Betz sees a threat to small farmers such as himself: competition from hedge fund-owned farms that could drive him out of business. Land speculation tends to increase the price of not only the land but also the food it produces. And when that upward trend reverses itself, Betz fears, deep-pocketed investors can better weather the storm than can small, family-owned Michigan farms.
