Farmfolio Ratings at a Glance
Farmfolio is a farmland crowdfunding platform offering investors the opportunity to buy a fraction of a farm or a whole farm, primarily in Colombia.
Farmfolio is based in Medellin, Antioquia, Colombia. The company focuses on and selects tree-crop farms that you can invest in and own hands-free, providing the potential for passive income from the sale of limes or coconuts or property appreciation. All management of the farm is handled by Farmfolio and its agribusiness partners.
Farmfolio looks for high-growth regions with a history of strong performance in agriculture, targeting permanent crops, such as trees, for long-term growth potential and consistent income. Read this Farmfolio review to decide whether farmland investing fits your investment goals.
How Does Farmfolio Work?
Founded in 2015, Farmfolio grew from the desire of a group of business leaders to provide investors with access to prime agricultural assets. The privately held company has grown into a vertical business, providing farming operations, back-office services, packing, processing, distributing and exporting.
When investing in farmland with Farmfolio, you can buy a LOT (land ownership title) that gives you fractional direct ownership with title to your portion of a farm. The ownership structure is tenants in common, which gives you proportional ownership, responsibility and the right to use or transfer your part of the farm. Farmfolio retains the titles as a custodian.
If you choose, you can buy an entire farm. Farmfolio will locate, buy and manage a whole farm for a group of investors or an institution, allowing you to put your capital to work and acquire wholesale discounts at scale.
Unlike many farmland investing platforms, Farmfolio is open to non-accredited investors as well as accredited investors — those worth $1 million or more or earning $200,000 per year.
Also unique among companies offering farmland for sale is that Farmfolio does not require a minimum for you to hold your property. You can sell or transfer it at any time. You may be charged a 3% brokerage fee.
The minimum investment for a LOT typically ranges from $30,000 to $60,000. You own the land, but the property is administered by the Farmowners Association (FOA), which is composed of the property owners. The FOA charges a fee of 0.5% to 1.0% for overseeing the farm and hires a third party to run the farm.
For a whole-farm purchase, you must schedule a call with Farmfolio to discuss details about the property, including pricing. However, at the time of this Farmfolio review, the Calendly link was not valid.
The Farmfolio website provides good information about the company, including a six-minute video introducing key company officials and explaining Farmfolio’s processes. These features are useful:
- Featured property prominently presented
- Clear, clean layout on why and how to invest
- Quick seven-step questionnaire to register
You get plenty of information from Farmfolio. However, the “Login” and “Get Started” buttons send you to the seven-question survey, which did not appear to be working on the day of this Farmfolio review. Clicking “Register” delivered a small splash screen with the following message: “Passwords cannot be submitted.”
Accessing help on Farmfolio is limited. At the bottom of the homepage and five other pages, you can connect with Farmfolio through email: info@farmfolio.net. However, no telephone number or chat is listed.
A link to schedule a call from the featured property page and a “Contact Us” link at the bottom of the blog page send you to the Calendly page, which was not working during this review.
Frequently asked questions are available on the “Opportunities” page of the website, but not if you click “FAQs” on the blog page.
The company has no ratings or reviews on Trustpilot or ScamAdviser, although ScamAdviser does declare Farmfolio a legitimate business.
Ease of use of the platform could not be determined during this Farmfolio review because registering for the site was not available. However, the survey to register was straightforward, with easy-to-understand questions, radio buttons to click, one drop-down menu and a form for your name, email address, telephone number and password.
Farmfolio provides copious information on its web pages in bits that are easy to digest quickly but still give the full flavor. You learn about the business, how the operation works and the impact the company is having on Farmfolio farmers, communities across Colombia and the environment.
Beyond helping you feel comfortable about what you may be getting into, Farmfolio regularly posts blogs, maintains videos on YouTube and posts to Facebook. Topics cover issues that impact agribusiness, such as challenges facing the food service industry and its impact on the lime market or the opportunities created by the U.S.-China trade war.
According to its video, the company provides a dashboard where you can access quarterly and annual reports that are also delivered to you in print. The reports cover Farmfolio returns, profit and loss and expenses by category.
Farmfolio doesn’t have a mobile app for investors. However, its website has a device-responsive design that makes it highly compatible with mobile phones.
In its privacy policy, Farmfolio says it abides by all U.S. laws for collecting, using and storing personal information. The company uses a third-party payment gateway that is compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS), including all personal and credit information being encrypted by Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.
Personal data is behind network security and transactions are processed through the third-party gateway, with no information stored or processed on Farmfolio’s site.
Getting news or financial information on private companies can be difficult. In this case, it is undetermined how well Farmfolio is doing. Of the three founders – Oscar Baracaldo, Dax Cooke and Peter Kern – only Baracaldo is listed on the company’s website. He’s the CEO.
The technology to invest with Farmfolio was not working at the time of this Farmfolio review. However, conversations through the beginning of this year on BiggerPockets, the online community focused on real estate, suggest that investors are still buying farmland and the company is expanding operations.
The uncertainty caused by limited information led to the neutral score for Farmfolio.
Farmfolio vs. Competitors
AcreTrader and FarmTogether are Farmfolio competitors. Farmfolio offers investors more attractive benefits than AcreTrader and FarmTogether, which both accept only accredited investors, offer no liquidity and charge higher management fees and a 2% closing fee, potentially decreasing your returns.
By contrast, here’s what you get with Farmfolio:
- Accredited and non-accredited investors accepted
- Low management fee through FOA
- Liquidity with a 3% fee
- International investment
You also get direct ownership, unlike AcreTrader and FarmTogether, which create limited liability companies (LLCs) to hold properties and lease you the land.
Frequently Asked Questions
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Whether Farmfolio is a good company can only be answered by how the company fits with your investment goals and risk tolerance. Farmfolio is listed among the top farmland crowdfunding platforms and is considered the best for investing in international farmland.
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Farmfolio is a legitimate business offering accredited and non-accredited investors opportunities to own a fraction of farmland or a whole farm in Colombia through a crowdfunding platform. While some investors have expressed concerns about delayed returns after three years, another farm owner has pointed out that lime crops typically show a profit in years 4 through 10.
