The Overseas Investment Office has given a consent to allow an American businessman to purchase this 288ha property in the Kenepuru Sounds shown on Google Maps, where he plans to construct a feedlot. Photo: Google MapsFarmers Weekly | 2 June 2026OIO greenlights Marlborough feedlot investment
by Gerald Piddock
The Overseas Investment Office has granted a consent for American businessman Sjerp William Ysselstein to buy 288 hectares of farmland in Marlborough’s Kenepuru Sounds to construct a feedlot.
The just-released decision by the OIO said the applicant intends to convert the land at 69 Titirangi Road into an intensive feedlot farming system utilising barn systems for feeding and housing cattle.
It cited economic benefits in the form of increased production and export receipts, creation of employment and additional capital expenditure as the key benefits from the investment.
Consent was granted as the applicant met the investor test criterion and the investment is likely to benefit New Zealand.
A Marlborough District Council spokesperson said the council had received no resource consents related to this property.
The land’s vendors, RW Hopkinson and EJ Hopkinson-Young Partnership, currently use land to breed and finish sheep and cattle. It was purchased for $4.245 million.
Ysselstein is a trustee for The Marlborough Family Estate Trust.
According to LinkedIn, Sjerp (Shep) Ysselstein has worked in the cattle and dairy processing industry since he graduated from Dordt College in Sioux Center, Iowa.
He currently lives in Rock Valley, Iowa with his wife where he founded Green Meadows Foods, the largest dairy farm in the Midwest at the time.
He has since expanded his business into Southern California, New Mexico, and Arizona where he runs cattle raising ranches with his son.
Green Meadows Foods was purchased by Canadian dairy co-operative Agropur in 2009.
He is also the owner-operator of Cameiro Heifer Ranch, a dairy heifer growing facility in Brawley, California.
In 2017, one of Ysselstein’s farms, Meadowvale Dairy LLC reached a settlement with the US federal government where it was fined US$160,000 for violations of the Clean Water Act after it illegally discharged pollutants into Iowa streams, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.
