UK Equity Partner Charles Whitaker: How Farmers and Investors Both Succeed

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The question of whether institutional investors are good for agriculture is not new. It has surfaced repeatedly over the last half-century, often during periods of economic stress or structural change in farming. These days with some farmers burdened by the higher cost of operating and borrowing combined with the lower return for commodities, they may question how they can keep going forward. 

That is where longtime agribusiness consultant and adviser Charles Whitaker, a founding equity partner with UK-based Brown&Co, believes investors can add value to the system. 

His beliefs were formed by spending more than three decades at Brown&Co. 

“Well, of course [we’ve] been through many cycles in that period—the last 35 years,” Whitaker told American Farmland Owner during a recent trip to Iowa. “Institutional investment in the land market in the UK was a big thing in the 70s and 80s just as I was getting started really.”

Charles Whitaker bio:

• Brown&Co– Founder Equity Partner/Managing Partner 

• Agricultural Asset Management -- Chief Executive Office/Chief Investment Officer 

• Brown&Co is a strategic partner in the International Ag Alliance

(Note: Brown&Co. recently released its Agricultural Update for October 2025-December 2025. The report tracks how milk, lamb, and steer prices are among those that rose in the fourth quarter. Hogs, fertilizer, and crude oil prices have generally fallen.)

Investors’ Entrance into UK Farmland

In that era, institutional investors entered farmland ownership at scale. The timing was not accidental. Difficult economic pressures in the late 1970s and 1980s forced many farmers to reassess capital needs, debt levels, and long-term viability.

“A lot of that was driven by hard economics in the 80s and late 70s,” Whitaker explained. “So, institutions will buy farmland, leave tenants in place, get them long-term tenures. That was good for the farmer. He didn’t go bust because he’d run out of money. He got his capital out and he could carry on farming.”

That distinction matters. Institutional ownership did not always mean displacement. It can create stability, which may allow farmers to remain on the land without carrying unsustainable financial risk. Whitaker believes versions of that model may return as pressures mount again.

“I think we might see some of that coming back,” he said.

RELATED: Financial pressures are mounting for some UK farmers because of these factors. 

Farmland Ownership and Cultural History Can Be Connected 

Still, the issue is not purely economic. Farmland is deeply tied to identity, heritage, and local control, especially outside the U.S. and Western Europe. Whitaker has seen resistance firsthand in regions where land ownership is inseparable from cultural history.

“…we just did work in the Eastern Caribbean where it’s all about, ‘This is my land. We don’t want the white man coming here to promise,’ and all that sort of stuff,” he said. 

He added, “You have to approach all these things sensitively and sensibly, and you’ve got to find a fair balance. The relationship has to be fair. When it’s not fair, it doesn’t work.”

That emphasis on fairness underpins Whitaker’s broader view. Institutional capital itself is not the problem; misaligned incentives are.

As agriculture has consolidated globally, the need for what Whitaker calls “patient capital” has grown dramatically. Traditional farming families often no longer have the balance sheets—or successors—to fund expansion or modernization alone.

“As time has gone on, I think the industry’s become more sophisticated. The numbers have gotten bigger,” he said. “The requirement actually for patient capital in the sector wherever we are around the world is big…because it doesn’t exist in the farming families anymore.”

Changing Forces in Farming

Farm aggregation, economies of scale, and demographic shifts are forcing difficult decisions. “We aggregate farms to get better scale, better economics, and we run out of children,” Whitaker noted. “They’re offered something more interesting…or easier (than farming).”

That reality makes external capital increasingly unavoidable. “We’re very much wedded to the thought process that we need some of the external capital,” he said. “We just need to find the right balance to it, really. It’s how it works with the farmers.”

RELATED: Brown&Co. is a member of the International Ag Alliance. In February 2025, American Farmland Owner profiled one of the other key strategic partners in this new multi-continental alliance.