New Zealand

New Zealand's state pension fund is looking at buying overseas farmland amid growing demand for food in emerging markets, and it is also interested in assets offered by struggling European banks as well as catastrophe insurance.

Canada's Public Sector Pension Investment Board is looking to capitalise on favourable growing conditions and access to Asian markets having taken a 30 percent stake in the central North Island's Kaingaroa forestry estate.

New research indicates that foreign ownership of farmland and other rural real estate in New Zealand may be closer to 10%, significantly higher than a recent conflicting estimate of 1.5%.

The new Australian head of Singapore-listed agribusiness Olam International wants to build more partnerships with institutional investors to open up investment in the agricultural sector.

Foreigners own far more New Zealand farmland than officially estimated and could hold a tenth of our country's productive agricultural real estate, says Bill Rosenberg of the Council for Trade Unions.

The Chinese conglomerate that bought the Crafar Farms this year is not ruling out the possibility of buying more New Zealand dairy land to fuel its exports to China.

Since Jane Mendillo took over the endowment in July 2008, Harvard’s holdings of forests, farms and other natural resources in Brazil as well as in New Zealand and Romania have grown to about 10 percent of the portfolio -- more than $3 billion -- and she wants to add more.

A Chinese company's controversial bid to buy 16 New Zealand dairy farms has stalled again after a mystery backer agreed to finance another legal appeal against the purchase.

Foreign purchases of land in New Zealand have dropped off significantly over the last seven months, after Chinese investors became embroiled in a long-running land dispute and declining carbon-credit prices made forestry assets less attractive.

Jessica Mutch spoke to Fred Pearce in London about the Crafar farm buy-up by a Chinese company and whether New Zealand should be nervous about land grabbing.

While Australians fret about how much farmland is being snapped up by foreign investors, our New Zealand cousins have adopted a no-nonsense policy on rural land sales to off-shore investors.

Public opinion is generally cool on overseas investment, especially large land sales to corporate interests where the owners are unlikely to work in the country themselves.