VanEck is preparing to launch an agribusiness ETF in Europe, giving investors exposure to companies operating across the global agricultural supply chain.
The VanEck Agribusiness UCITS ETF has been registered with the Irish regulator, according to public filings reported by ETF Stream. The fund would enter a relatively small part of the European ETF market, where the €430m iShares Agribusiness UCITS ETF is currently the only UCITS ETF offering dedicated agribusiness exposure.
VanEck already has considerable experience with the theme in the US. Its VanEck Agribusiness ETF (MOO), launched in 2007, has grown to almost $1bn in assets and tracks companies involved in areas including agricultural chemicals, fertilisers, seeds, farm machinery, irrigation, animal health and agricultural trading.
That makes agribusiness ETFs different from products giving investors direct exposure to agricultural commodities. Rather than tracking movements in the prices of crops such as wheat or corn, they invest in the businesses supplying the agricultural industry, from fertiliser manufacturers and seed specialists to machinery producers, irrigation companies and agricultural traders.
Food security and the resilience of agricultural supply chains continue to be in focus. Disruption to fertiliser shipments through the Strait of Hormuz earlier this year contributed to the World Bank’s fertiliser price index rising more than 12% during the first three months of 2026, reaching its highest level since October 2022 by April.
With finite farmland and growing food demand, farmers increasingly need technology that enables them to produce more with fewer inputs. This includes precision agriculture, soil monitoring, data analysis, drones and satellite-guided machinery, areas where VanEck sees considerable scope for further adoption.
The asset manager estimates the wider global agribusiness industry was worth $3.4tn in 2024 and could reach $4.4tn by 2033. It also points to precision agriculture as one of the faster-growing parts of the market as farms increasingly use data and automation to improve efficiency.
Our view
David Batchelor, senior analyst at QuotedData, said: “Agriculture is an interesting thematic area because the underlying problem is difficult to ignore – more food needs to be produced from a limited supply of land, while climate disruption and geopolitical events continue to expose vulnerabilities in global supply chains.
An agribusiness ETF gives investors a relatively straightforward way of accessing the companies trying to solve that problem without having to take a direct view on individual agricultural commodity prices. The exposure is also broader than it might first appear, stretching from fertiliser and seeds through to machinery, irrigation and increasingly sophisticated farming technology.
That does not necessarily make it a defensive investment, however. Agricultural businesses remain sensitive to commodity prices, weather, farm incomes and government policy. Higher fertiliser prices may benefit producers, for example, while simultaneously reducing farmers’ ability to invest in new equipment. As with many thematic ETFs, the long-term structural argument can therefore be convincing while returns from the underlying companies remain cyclical”.
