WHO OWN STOP TASSIE FARMS?

THE world-famous Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Chinese retailers and global business leaders are leading the charge for Tasmanian farmland.

A Mercury investigation can reveal Tasmania has been a key destination for capital in the race to invest in the agriculture space with some of the world’s biggest pension funds and businesses snap ping up prime dirt.

The single-biggest investor in Australian agriculture, Ottawa-based PSP Investments – which manages the superannuation funds of Canada’s public service, armed forces and the 30,000 member-strong mounted police – made its first investment in the Apple Isle earlier this year snapping up the Swansea Orchard as part of its $854m takeover of the AS X-listed Webster Limited.

Webster – Australia’s fourth-oldest company and one of the nation’s biggest land holders–was founded in Tasmaniain 1831.

Other foreign interests investing in the Tasmanian agriculture space in recent years have included the Chinese retail giant Dashang Group, which owns the Calthorpe and Millers cherry, apple and pear orchards at Sidmouth and Hillwood respectively.

At 22,000ha running 4000 dairy cows, Tasmania’s biggest farming business is Rushy Lagoon at Red Hills and East Wy am bie, owned by one of New Zealand’s richest farmers, Alan Pye. It was listed for sale in 2018 with an asking price of about $70m.

The state’s dairy industry has attracted significant foreign capital in recent years.

In 2018, US-backed Laguna Bay Pastoral Company purchased eight dairy farms around Smithton for more than $80m.

Two years earlier, China’s Moonlake Investments paid $280 mf or the Australia’ s biggest dairy operation–the 17,800ha VDL Farms near Cape Grim.

According to the Federal Government, 356,000ha of Tasmanian farmland, including forestry, was owned by foreign interests in June 2019 – a fall of 1.7 per cent on the previous year.