Farm ownership in Australia

Written by: Duncan B. on 5 May 2025

The farm newspaper Weekly Times has just released the results of its annual survey of farm ownership in Australia. As always, these results make interesting reading.

Top of the list and clear leader is the Canadian Pension fund PSP Investments, which now has Australian agricultural holdings valued at $8.5 billion. They continued to spend up big in the last year and have investments in a wide variety of farming including cropping, livestock, horticulture, vineyards, cotton and nuts across many different areas of Australia.

Second is the Australian-owned Macquarie Agriculture Fund, with $4 billion in assets also spread across Australia in a wide variety of types of farming.

A US-based pension fund, TIAA & Nuveen Natural Capital is third with $2.5 billion of well-spread assets in Australia. This company’s global portfolio includes 600-plus assets valued at US $13.7 billion in 10 countries.

Fourth is the Trump-loving Gina Rinehart. Her Hancock Agriculture and S Kidman & Co has $2 billion invested mainly in cattle raising in the Northern Territory, Queensland, NSW and Victoria.

Behind Gina come a number of companies with investments in the $1-2 billion range. They are a mixture of local investment funds, Canadian pension funds plus one US and one Hong Kong-based company.

One to watch is Farmland Reserve, which is an investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormons). Acting through a local subsidiary Alkira Farms Inc., this company has been busy in the last year, spending nearly $500 million on acquisitions of Australian farms. Farmland Reserve has a world-wide investment portfolio valued at over A$300 billion. We will watch with interest at what this crowd is up to!

The wide-spread ownership of our agriculture by foreign interests puts at risk our food security and their hold over water rights will make it harder for Australian farmers to gain access to precious irrigation water.

Oppose the foreign take-over of Australian agriculture!

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