New Zealand

Chinese conglomerate Shanghai Pengxin is poised to buy its second set of dairy farms in New Zealand, the world's leading dairy produce export country, as China's firms increasingly look overseas for sources of milk to meet growing demand at home.

A massive New Zealand farm the size of Christchurch has been sold to a North American investment group.

It has been reported that the state-owned China Investment Corporation and New Zealand dairy giant Fonterra are negotiating to buy Tasmanian dairy farm Van Diemen's Land under a proposed $200 million deal.

The High Court in Auckland has formalised a wide-ranging asset freeze against the unsuccessful bidders for the Crafar farms, Jack Chen and May Wang.

China is headed to spend a record this year on food assets and farms after a $32.7 billion splurge in the past five years and just $4.2 billion in the prior half-decade, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Prime Minister John Key has told Chinese officials that foreign ownership of farmland is a sensitive issue in New Zealand.

China's ambassador says New Zealand has "over thought" his country's interest in acquiring land here, claiming other major farm purchases are unlikely.

"The UAE is looking not just at land [acquisitions] but developing the whole supply chain," says Nicholas Lodge, managing partner at Clarity, a consultancy that advises on investments in agricultural industries.

In New Zealand, an opposition party is demanding hard figures on how much farmland is owned by foreigners, but the government says it can't produce the figures.

The 16,000-hectare farm which Första AP-fonden bought in Australia in December was one of a clutch of purchases of farmland, worth some $100m, by the pension fund.

Governments in a number of countries are trying to address concerns about land grabbing by closing their borders to foreign investors. Are these restrictions effective? Not really, says GRAIN.

New Zealand Minister of Foreign Affairs says his country can be a logical partner for resource-rich Gulf countries as a producer of food in places like Africa, where experts say half of the potential agricultural land is under-utilised.