Australia

A new type of property deal is entering the agribusiness space as investor interest in the sector grows, according to property group Colliers International.

NeglectAssist is warning private investors to watch out for exotic Australian land investments promising both security and high returns.

San Diego County Employees Retirement Association plans to commit $275 million to $400 million to real assets including agriculture, mining, energy and timber in 2015.

China’s biggest potential investment in Australian agriculture, a $1 billion high-risk foray in the fabled Ord River irrigation scheme.

Agribusiness executive David Goodfellow is heading up a project for Zhejiang RIFA Holding Group to build an Australian livestock property portfolio of similar scale to Macquarie Bank's big Paraway Pastoral business.

ACE Farming, backed by institutional investors, has stayed out of the limelight, quietly building up its portfolio of 18 dairy farms across Victoria.

The Nationals, and some regional Liberals, claim that without the register, Australia's food security and sovereignty could be jeopardised.

So much for the Ord as a ‘food bowl’. So much too for a new partnership with indigenous people. As in transactions with land-grabbers in poorer lands, the valued partnership now is with big money.

Former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke lobbied Colin Barnett to allow a Chinese company to buy a large package of land in the Ord River.

Sundrop Farms has received a capital injection from private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts to aggressively expand its tomato growing operations in South Australia.

Kimberley Agricultural Investment, owned by Chinese company Shanghai Zhongfu, has told the State Government "on an informal basis" it wants freehold ownership of the 6000ha Knox Plain area, in northern Australia.

The $700 million fund, owned by London based Terra Firma, controls 19 properties across Australia's top end covering more than 5.6 million hectares.