Latest on foreign investment in Australian agriculture

Written by: Duncan B. on 20 March 2023

                                                                       (Photo: ABC Mid West and Wheatbelt)

The latest figures on the extent of foreign investment in Australian agriculture have just been released. As always, they make interesting but disturbing reading.

The Top Ten investors with their country of origin and the amount of their investments are:

1. PSP Investments (Canada $6 billion).
2. Macquarie Agriculture (Australia $3 billion).
3. TIAA-CREF-Nuveen (USA $2.2 billion).
4. Rural Funds Group (Australia $1.6 billion).
5. CK Life Sciences (Hong Kong $1.5 billion).
6. Manulife (Canada $1.2 billion).
7. Auston Corporation (Canada $1billion).
8. Australian Agricultural Company (Australia $1 billion).
9. goFARM (Australia $850 million).
10 Fiera Comox (Canada $800 million).

We can see that Canadian investments far outstrip the others. PSP operates over 120 properties across all states and territories in a wide variety of cropping, horticulture, cattle, sheep and nuts.

Foreign companies also control the majority of our dairy processors, sugar refineries, ports, meat processors, cattle feedlots and bulk grain terminals.
There are some wealthy Australians not far behind the big investors. Well-known names such as Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest and Kerry Stokes are among the Top Ten Australian investors in agriculture.
(Details of these investments can be found in the May edition of AgJournal published by the Weekly Times.)

There is a great divide between Australia’s small and medium farmers and the foreign and Australian millionaire and billionaire investors in agriculture. The small and medium farmers must seek unity with the Australian working class and its allies in the struggle for an independent Australia.

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