Australia

Rising demand for leased farmland has convinced agricultural asset manager Growth Farms Australia to launch a 10-year investment fund which will buy mid-sized farming properties and lease them to primary producers.

The promises that helped a Chinese firm secure government approval for the controversial purchase of Australia’s largest dairy farm were not “legally binding”, according to Treasury officials.

The Weekly Times has compiled a list of more than 900 properties, and their owners, who range from family farms to domestic and international corporate and investment institutions. The result? The big are getting bigger.

“I’ve got strong interest from Canada, the United Kingdom and Dubai and they want to come out now and have a look around," says the owner of the largest semi-contiguous cropping aggregation to be offered in Australia’s history.

The hefty mark-up for the 5.5 million ha property could leave foreign bidders in the box seat, testing the government's appetite for foreign ownership less than two years after it rejected China-led bids for an energy grid and agricultural company. energy grid and agricultural company.

A mass board resignation at the Chinese firm that bought Australia’s largest dairy farm has fuelled concerns it may not fulfil its promises of local investment and environmental protection.

Tokyo-based Nippon Life Insurance Company makes its first investment in a farmland investment fund through a US$92.5 million investment in an overseas farmland investment fund managed by Hancock Natural Resources Group

With first round bids due imminently, the high expectations could leave foreign bidders in the box seat, testing the government’s appetite for foreign ownership of sensitive assets less than two years after it rejected China-led bids for a major energy grid and agricultural company.

The Kahlbetzer family’s Twynam Agricultural Group has sold three properties in Lachlan Valley in New South Wales to two overseas investors – MERS Global Investments and Optifarm

AgCAP has completed the sale of its initial Sustainable Agriculture Fund (SAF) portfolio, which included the sale to institutional and private equity investors of SAF’s three cropping aggregations in Australia.

More detail surrounding foreign ownership of Australia’s agricultural assets should be made publicly available, the National Farmers’ Federation says.

One of the people most active in driving Chinese investment in Australian farmland, David Goodfellow, is switching camps to help build a $1 billion Canadian investment portfolio.