Faculty, staff, and students at colleges and universities across the country are unknowingly participating in land grabbing. Retirement funds and college endowments are major players in farmland speculation. Now there is a way to push back. 

The financial firm TIAA, which manages retirement funds paid for with tuition dollars on most campuses, is the leading player in rural land grabbing. TIAA has so far claimed at least 2.2 million acres of farmland to expand mono-cropping plantations that destroy soil fertility, water sources, biodiversity and food production of local communities. TIAA makes claims about sustainability, while it is well known that agribusiness is a main cause of increasing greenhouse gas emissions, environmental destruction, and climate change.

Faculty, Staff, and Students Can Stop Land Grabbing!

Faculty, staff, and students at colleges and universities have the power to stop these land grabs! We have created a toolkit for faculty and students with information on how to take action on TIAA. We hope you can organize on your campus and decide what forms of action at your university will work best to pressure TIAA to get out of land grabbing.

You can find a Sample Resolution HERE.

You can find the toolkit HERE.

The toolkit includes important background information on TIAA and land grabbing, as well as concrete strategies to take action. One of the most impactful ways to take action is to organize faculty senates to pass resolutions calling on college and university officials to get their money out of TIAA's land speculation.