Canada tops list of foreign water owners, while China biggest landholder

Foreign land ownership in Australia has dipped slightly while overseas demand for our water has increased, latest figures show.

Big buyout: 25.5 per cent (401,000ha) of Tasmania’s 1.57m ha of agricultural land was foreign owned, as at June 30 last year.

Foreign corporations took ownership of 14.1 per cent of Australian farmland and 11 per cent of the arid continents water last financial year, according to Australian Taxation Office registers released this week.

The registers show foreign ownership of Australian farmland dipped slightly to 52.985 million hectares in the 12 months to June 30 last year, while overseas investors’ water ownership ebbed higher to 4.389 million megalitres.

Half the foreign-owned water is held within the Murray Darling Basin, equal to 2229GL or 11.3 per cent of food bowl’s 19,755GL entitlements.

The biggest player dipping into Australia’s water markets is Canada, whose pension fund PSP Investments and others have lifted their holdings from 698,000ML to 810,000ML in the 12 months to June last year. The US and China’s water holdings dropped slightly over that period.

Foreign water ownership by nation.

But when it comes to investing in land China still topped the list for 2020-21, holding 8.49m ha in total, consisting of 7.669m ha in perpetual pastoral leases and 830,000ha as freehold.

Across the board about 83 per cent of land listed on the register is held as perpetual lease.

Foreign owned land holdings in Australia – freehold, leasehold and total.

But while pastoral leases dominate the register, it still shows foreign interest in cropping country has tipped over 2m ha, while forestry accounted for 1.4m ha and the use of 3.1m ha was unreported.

Foreign-held agricultural land by use.

State breakdowns show the greatest growth in foreign ownership in 2020-21 was in Tasmania (5 per cent) and Victoria (4.7 per cent), but off very low bases.

Foreign owned land by state

Overall the register showed that Tasmania and the Northern Territory had the highest levels of foreign ownership.

The register shows that in:

TASMANIA 25.5 per cent (401,000ha) of the state’s 1.57m ha of agricultural land is foreign owned.

NORTHERN TERRITORY 25.5 per cent (14.2m ha) of the state’s 53.85m ha of agricultural land is foreign owned.

WESTERN AUSTRALIA 16.6 per cent (14.39m ha) of the state’s 84.9m ha of agricultural land is foreign owned.

QUEENSLAND 12.2 per cent (15.64m ha) of the state’s 128.7m ha of agricultural land is foreign owned.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA 10.9 per cent (4.9m ha) of the state’s 45.3m ha of agricultural land is foreign owned.

VICTORIA 5.9 per cent (669,000ha) of the state’s 11.26m ha of agricultural land is foreign owned.

NSW/ACT 5.2 per cent (2.674m ha) of the state’s 51.3m ha of agricultural land is foreign owned.