Farmland Partners Inc . (NYSE: FPI) President and CEO Luca Fabbri says there is “huge potential” to grow the share of farmland assets within institutional investor portfolios, especially given the sector’s risk return profile, asset appreciation, and inflation protection benefits.

A co-founder of Farmland Partners alongside former CEO Paul Pittman, Fabbri was named president in October 2021 after serving as the company’s CFO since its inception. He became CEO in February.

Speaking with the Nareit REIT Report, Fabbri said the value of U.S. farmland assets is about $2.7 trillion, with institutional investors accounting for probably 5% or less of that amount. That means that there is still a lot of education to be done to show investors that the asset class offers many potential benefits. Among those are the scarcity of the underlying asset, an attractive risk return profile, asset appreciation, inflation protection, and the absence of correlation with other asset classes.

Episode 351: Farmland Partners CEO Sees “Huge Potential” to Grow Asset Class