Australia

CP Group has opened an office in Melbourne to start buying red meat and grains and set up a salmon farm in Australia.

Macquarie Group's new farmland fund, which is targeting farms in Australia and Brazil, has purchased its first two properties in Australia worth a total of almost $40 million.

With foreign investment in agriculture already occurring in Australia, many within the agricultural industry believe we need to be wary.

Almost half of Australian executives surveyed by an international law firm favor higher trade barriers to protect the nation’s food supply and see foreign investment in agriculture and farmland as a threat.

Corporate control of Australia’s farmland is beginning to ruffle feathers among some of the country’s primary producers.


Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co, China's biggest beverage producer, hopes to invest about $220 million in dairy farms in Western Australia in order to expand its import channels for milk.

Australian Liberal senator Bill Heffernan has described as "bullshit" his party's proposed policy for more scrutiny of overseas companies buying into Australian agriculture because it ignored the real threat posed by foreign government-owned funds buying up farmland.

The Australian Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce is pushing for even tougher restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland and agribusinesses than those advocated by his party, fuelling Liberal anger at Tony Abbott's failure to rein in National Party ''freelancing'' on sensitive economic issues.

Australian farmers have demanded an overhaul of foreign investment rules ahead of any attempt to harness Asian capital to boost the nation's food production.

State-owned food giant COFCO Corp is likely to pursue more overseas acquisitions of sugar companies, its Chairman Ning Gaoning said on the sidelines of the ongoing National People's Congress in Beijing Thursday.

Senator Bill Heffernan and the managing director of the Australian Agricultural Company David Farley join The Business to discuss overseas investment in Australia.

The 500,000-hectare station, located about 150 kilometres south-west of the Gulf of Carpentaria, is believed to have sold for about $33 million, and included about 28,000 head of mixed cattle in the contract.