Who is Behind the Real Land Grab in NZ?

Labour have announced new policy on foreign attempts to buy our agricultural land and National claim they have already tightened the rules for the Overseas Investment Office. All this is welcome and overdue, said Kiwi Party leader Larry Baldock and Agriculture spokesperson Brian Dobbs.

“But aren’t we perhaps missing the real land grab that has been going on under our noses for some time,” asked Mr Baldock?

“Should we not be as equally concerned about the land grabbing activity of our own government SOE Landcorp which owns 116 farms covering 374,948 hectares in New Zealand? With total assets of $1.5 billion the NZ taxpayer saw Landcorp announce a net profit last week of only $10 million plus $8 million from the sale of farms. Their balance sheet shows a net profit on equity investment of only 4.5%.

Surely this is proof that the private sector and not the government is better at returning profit back to the people of New Zealand and the returns of NZ Inc could be improved if the farms were in private hands.

In the last decade Landcorp has converted large tracts of forestry into dairy farms while many young farming families in NZ struggle to find farms they can afford to purchase to carry on the great NZ heritage of farm production that is the backbone of our economy and exports.

The Kiwi Party believes Landcorp should be required to parcel up blocks of land into family sized economic farming units and make them available for young Kiwi farmers to purchase through a ballot system.

This will have the desired effect of making more land available at an affordable price therefore stimulating the economy and strengthening the local communities " says Agricultural spokesman Brian Dobbs. He expressed his concern at the corporatisation of farming in New Zealand he has witnessed over his years of involvement in dairy farming and regrets that it is stifling the dream of farm ownership for too many young farmers.

ENDS

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