By: CNBC.com | 03 Mar 2009 | 05:35 AM ET
Commodities are still the best play for the long term, legendary investor Jim Rogers told CNBC,
confessing that he has been buying farmland himself.
“We’re still going to eat, probably; we’re still going to wear clothes, probably. Farmers cannot get loans
for fertilizers right now. So the supplies of everything are going to continue to be under pressure,” Rogers
said.
He is the director of two funds which are buying greenfield land in Brazil and existing farms in Canada
and starting to farm it. The funds are clearing the land, fertilizing it, irrigating it and hiring farmers and,
Rogers said, some day will probably sell the land but that is a remote prospect.
“If I’m right, agriculture is going to be one of the greatest industries in the next 20 years, 30 years.”
Food inventories are at their lowest in 50 years, Rogers said, while the oil and mining sectors are also good bets.
“Even if demand goes flat or down, as it did in the 30s, as it did in the 70s, you can still have a nice market,” he told CNBC.
Despite the recent rally, gold is still a good opportunity if investors choose the right time and way to get in, according to Rogers.
“I own some gold, of course I own some gold. If gold goes down, I’ll buy more,” he said. “The IMF is trying to sell their
gold and if they do then they’ll drive the price of gold down a lot. If they do … that’ll be the last opportunity to buy gold
in a long, long time.”
“You can buy coins, you can buy the real stuff, you can buy ETFs and ETNs on the exchanges, you can buy
mining companies if you know what you’re doing…,” he added.
Earlier this year, Rogers said he liked the Swiss franc and the yen but gave up the Swiss currency. “I stopped
buying the Swiss franc when the Swiss (central) bank bailed out UBS. I still hold the yen.”
Asked whether the current collapse in commodities prices worries him, he said: “You’re supposed to buy
when they’re collapsing. I expect to own commodities for years, for a long time.”