Handful of Australian families own more farmland than foreign investors

A HANDFUL of Australian families own more of the nation’s farmland than all foreign interests combined.

All our own: Birdsville cattleman David Brook with some of his OBE Beef organic cattle at the Bluebush yards on Adria Station, near Birdsville. He is a partner in the OBE Beef company with 30 other farmers.

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A  HANDFUL of Australian families own more of the ­nation’s farmland than all foreign interests combined.

An investigation by The Weekly Times can reveal 14 domestic families and pastoral companies operate 50.3 million hectares of Australian farmland combined — more than the area controlled by foreign interests.

The Government’s latest ­report on foreign ownership in Australian agriculture in 2013 showed 49.6 million hectares of farms — or 11 per cent — were foreign owned.

The revelation comes amid heightened interest in who owns Australian farms as the Government last week ­announced it would likely block the $371 million sale of pastoral giant S Kidman and Co to Chinese-backed consortium Dakang Australia.

Treasurer Scott Morrison said an independent review by former ACCC chairman Graeme Samuel found “significant domestic interest in Kidman” remained and he was concerned “that the form in which the Kidman portfolio has been offered as a single aggre­gated asset has rendered it difficult for Australian bidders to be able to make a competitive bid”.

Kidman had until yesterday to respond to the review, which has angered some business groups, who claim Australia is sending mixed signals on foreign investment.

With 10.1 million hectares, it is the biggest domestically owned landholder.

Other major players include the Australian Agricultural Company (seven million hectares), the Foster family’s North Australian Pastoral Company (5.8 million), the ­MacLachlan family’s Jumbuck Pastoral (5.75 million), ­McDonald Holdings (3.36 million), the Brook family of Queensland (3.5 million) and the Oxenford family’s Western Grazing (3.48 million).

The Holmes a Court family’s Heytesbury Cattle Company operates more than 2.6 million hectares while the Hughes family, of Hughes Pastoral, which runs Lake Nash Station, on the Queensland-NSW border, has amassed 2.25 million hectares.

Meanwhile, there have been instances of Australians buying back farmland from overseas interests in recent weeks.

Last month. Australian-owned Archipelago Beef Trust bought Northern Territory stations Riveren and Inverway from Indonesian live cattle ­importer Japfa for $60 million while last week Consolidated Pastoral Company, whose major shareholder is UK’s Terra Firma Group, ­announced it had sold its 108,000ha Humbert River ­Station in the Northern Territory to Heytesbury Cattle Company.

In other developments North Australian Pastoral Company, which is a partnership between the Foster family and London-based agribusiness firm MP Evans Group, is reportedly in talks to sell to Queensland Investment Corporation for $400 million.

Find out who really owns our land