Buying blitz as the Northern Territory’s foreign-owned farms revealed

These are the top five countries buying up Australian farms, as those owned by foreign entities in the Northern Territory are revealed.

Canada, the US, the Netherlands and the Bahamas are turning up the heat on Australian rural property prices as part of a multibillion-dollar buying blitz of our farms.

An investigation has found the five biggest investors in Australian agriculture – with combined land and water assets valued at almost $12 billion – are all backed directly or indirectly by foreign capital.

Leading the buying charge is PSP Investments – the pension fund for the famed Royal Canadian Mounted Police – which has spent $4.5 billion on Australian agriculture assets in recent years.

This includes more than $500 million on one of the nation’s biggest cotton growing and production businesses, the NSW-based Auscott Limited, last month.

Other major investors include Macquarie Group’s three agriculture-specific funds – whose backers include Dutch pension fund Stichting Pensioenfonds ABP – which own more than $3 billion of land and water assets, US teacher superannuation fund TIAA-CREF ($1.8 billion-plus in investments), the ASX-listed Rural Funds Group ($1.1 billion) and US-based Hancock Agricultural Investment Group ($1 billion-plus).

Members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Emergency Response Team. The pension fund for the RCMP has spent $4.5bn on Australian agriculture assets in recent years. Picture: Angus Mordant

According to latest Federal Government data, about 53 million hectares of farmland was owned or partly owned by foreigners in 2019-20 – an increase of 900,000 hectares on the previous year – accounting for 13.8 per cent of Australia’s farming area.

Canada-based PSP agriculture boss Mark Drouin said Australia was considered attractive to offshore buyers due to its prevailing rule of law, open approach to foreign investment and offering of scale for a wide range of agriculture pursuits – adding that strong demand was unlikely to wane anytime soon.

“Australia has been pretty pivotal (for us) since the beginning,” Mr Drouin said. “We are very much long-term investors. In the next 10 years or so … we’ve got to double again our deployment. If you think of the past two or three years we’ve invested somewhere between A$2.14 billion and A$3.22 billion on average a year – a large part of that has been in Australia – and I don’t see that slowing down anytime soon.”

Newry Station in Victoria River, owned by Clean Agriculture and International Tourism (Vietnam). Picture: Supplied

CBRE Agribusiness managing director David Goodfellow said another reason foreigners were attracted to Australia was its relatively affordable farmland compared to most of the rest of the world.

A recent Rural Bank report found the average price of Australian farmland last year was $5907 a hectare. This compares to A$10,125 a hectare in the US, $38,825 a hectare in Wales and $48,880 a hectare in southwest England.

According to the Federal Government data, China the biggest offshore holder of Australian farmland in 2019-20 with 9.2 million hectares – 8.4 million hectares of which was leased – followed by the UK (7.3 million hectares), the Netherlands (2.8 million hectares), the US (2.75 million hectares), Canada (2.61 million hectares) and the Bahamas (2.2 million hectares).

But Mr Goodfellow said after a wave of investment that started in about 2013, thanks to grants and subsidised loans from its government, China was now reducing its investments in Australia as it turned its attention to farmland in Brazil and Argentina.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the government welcomed foreign investment as long as it was in the “national interest”. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Chinese-owned Van Dairy Group this week sold 11 of its dairy farms in northwest Tasmania for $62.5 million and billionaire Gina Rinehart is also understood to be selling several cattle stations in Northern Australia to raise capital to buy out her Chinese partner in the famed S Kidman and Co pastoral business, which they bought in 2016.

“Investment goes in waves – there’s been countless examples of this over the years,” he said.

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said the government welcomed foreign investment as long as it was in the “national interest” and offshore companies paid “their fair share of tax”.

“We (need to) understand who is coming in, what the concentration limits are, particularly with industries and geographical areas,” Mr Littleproud said.

In 2015, the government famously knocked back a $350 million Chinese-only bid for S Kidman and Co on national interest grounds. Since that time, the likes of PSP have spent billions on farmland and water assets. Despite this, Mr Littleproud said the government was consistent on who it let buy Australian farmland, adding that issues such national security and food security needed to be taken into consideration.

“You’ve only got to look when Covid started, people were fighting over the last morsel of meat or the last toilet roll in Woollies,” he said. “The insanity of that goes to show that, as human beings, food security is at the fore of our thinking.”

BIG NT FARMS OWNED FULLY OR PARTIALLY BY FOREIGN INTERESTS

ALICE SPRINGS

- Ambalindum – 331,800 hectares. PSP Investments (Canada)

- Numery – 202,200 hectares. PSP Investments (Canada)

BARKLY TABLELANDS

- Murray Downs – 265,000 hectares. Australian Green Properties Pty Ltd (Philippines)

BATCHELOR

- La Belle Station – 61,000 hectares. Australian Agricultural Company (ASX-listed)

DALY WATERS

- Kalala Station – 376,000 hectares. Langenhoven family (South Africa)

- Forrest Hill Station – 54,000 hectares. Langenhoven family (South Africa)

- Tanumbirini Station – 500,000 hectares. Langenhoven family (South Africa)

DARWIN

- Pell and Tortilla – 5473 hectares. Australian Agricultural Company (ASX-listed)

ELLIOT

- Amungee Amungee – 316,900 hectares. Brett Blundy Retail Capital (Bahamas)

- Betaloo Station – 707,800 hectares. Brett Blundy Retail Capital (Bahamas)

- Mungabroom Station – 346,900 hectares. Brett Blundy Retail Capital (Bahamas)

- Vermelha Station – 200,000 hectares. An Vien Pastoral Holdings and Agriculture (Vietnam)

KATHERINE

- Auvergne Station – 414,200 hectares. Clean Agriculture and International Tourism (Vietnam)

- Dungowan Station – 445,500 hectares. Consolidated Pastoral Company (United Kingdom)

- Larrizona Station – 70,200 hectares. Langenhoven family (South Africa)

- Manbulloo Station – 379,130 hectares. Consolidated Pastoral Company (United Kingdom)

NEWCASTLE WATERS

- Newcastle Waters Station – 1,033,101 hectares. Consolidated Pastoral Company (United Kingdom)

POINT STUART

- Carmour Plains – 41,500 hectares. Sarawalk Economic Development Corporation (Malaysia)

ROPER VALLEY

- Big River Station – 70,800 hectares. Langenhoven family (South Africa)

- Mt McMinn Station – 81,000 hectares. Langenhoven family (South Africa)

TENNANT CREEK

- Anthony Lagoon – 934,900 hectares. Australian Agricultural Company (ASX-listed)

- Brunchilly Station – 457,200 hectares. Outback Beef (China)

- Brunette Downs – 1,221,200 hectares. Australian Agricultural Company (ASX-listed)

- Helen Springs Station – 570,000 hectares. Outback Beef (China)

- Walhallow Station – 999,700 hectares. Brett Blundy Retail Capital (Bahamas)

VICTORIA RIVER

- Bunda Station – 178,800 hectares. Consolidated Pastoral Company (United Kingdom)

- Camfield Station – 279,000 hectares. Australian Agricultural Company (ASX-listed)

- Delamere Station – 300,300 hectares. Australian Agricultural Company (ASX-listed)

- Kirkimbie Station – 230,400 hectares. Consolidated Pastoral Company (United Kingdom)

- Montejinni Station – 485,623 Australian Agricultural Company (ASX-listed)

- Newry Station – 246,700 hectares. Clean Agriculture and International Tourism (Vietnam)

Originally published as Buying blitz as the Northern Territory’s foreign-owned farms revealed