Bankers Betting On Sustainable & Organic

Our pal Mark Bittman over at The New York Times has an awesome blog post about Jeremy Grantham, an investor who is convinced that big money can be made from investing in organic, sustainable food production. Grantham sounds like our kind of banker:

I think a portfolio of farms that are doing state-of-the-art farming over a 20-, 30-year horizon will be the best investment money can buy. So I’m killing two birds with one stone: I want my foundation to make more money than anyone else on the planet, because that gives us much more to spend for the main event — which is saving the planet, in a nutshell.

Reminds us a little bit of this academic survey of big business acquisitions of organic and sustainable food companies. All the big food companies have recently gone on a shopping spree, picking up large and small brands that produce high-quality food that is both healthy for consumers and easy on the planet.

This is great news for environmentalists and foodies alike. Plugging healthy food producers into the distribution chains of multi-national companies will make their products less expensive and more widely-available.

Also:

If you're in the Bay Area this weekend, go to Oliveto and listen to our man Michael Pollan participate in a forum about grass-fed beef with a local rancher. We'll be sitting in the back wearing our Estancia cap and raising our hand a lot to ask questions. Here's the squib from Epicuring:

Join Rancher Mac Magruder, Journalist Michael Pollan, Oliveto Chef Jonah Rhodehamel, and Kathryn Quanbeck, a Mendocino sustainable business venture capitalist, for the latest installment in Oliveto's It's Complicated, a series of conversations about cooking, eating, and the politics of food. In conjunction with the discussion, Oliveto's will be offering a special grass-fed beef menu Friday and Saturday, featuring traditional Italian whole-animal cooking techniques.

And here's oliveto's website. That's one tasty-looking restaurant, don't you think?