ANZ defends farm lending rates
The country's largest lender to the agriculture sector says it's not favouring home loans over farm and business lending.
Federated Farmers has welcomed the Government decision to decline the sale of Lochinver Station to the Shanghai Pengxin Group.
Federated Farmers president, William Rolleston, says while the organisation supports positive overseas investment into New Zealand’s farming system, there needs to be a clearly demonstrated benefit to the local and national economy.
“This was not proven here and we believe the Lochinver decision reinforces the importance of changes made to the Overseas Investment Office rules over recent years,” he says.
“We now have a more thorough and robust framework for making critical decisions on foreign investment in rural land, and what we’ve seen here is ministers applying this framework as it was intended to be used. What we need is for foreign investors and those involved in the sale of rural land to work harder to find ways to demonstrate economic benefit, both on the property they are targeting and for the broader industry.
“This might be the introduction to New Zealand of new technology or using their overseas networks to open up new markets for other kiwi businesses.”
In December 2010, the Government tightened the rules around foreign ownership by way of an “economic interests” factor in the Overseas Investment Office’s consideration. The rule allows ministers to consider whether New Zealand’s economic interests are adequately “safeguarded and promoted” in the case of land aggregation or vertical integration.
This land aggregation threshold applies where an applicant is seeking is purchase a property or portfolio of properties which equates to more than 10 times the average size of a dairy or sheep and beef farm. Lochinver is three times larger than this threshold.
A ‘substantial and identifiable benefit’ test was also incorporated into the overseas investment decision framework in 2010, further bolstered in 2012 by a High Court decision adding a ‘with or without’ test. This test has been a key determinant of the Government’s decision over Lochiniver.
“The ‘with or without test’ is designed to ensure that any investment has benefit over and above just making a farm work better, and that these benefits can only be driven by foreign investment,” says Rolleston.
“Since Lochinver is so highly regarded in farming circles this was always going to be a tough test to pass, and because the station is three times the land aggregation trigger level for foreign investment, it had to be a test that was carried out thoroughly and confidently.”
More than 200 people turned out on Thursday, November 21 to see what progress has been made on one of NZ's biggest and most comprehensive agriculture research programmes on regenerative agriculture.
The a2 Milk Company (a2MC) says securing more China label registrations and developing its own nutritional manufacturing capability are high on its agenda.
Stellar speakers, top-notch trade sites, innovation, technology and connections are all on offer at the 2025 East Coast Farming Expo being once again hosted in Wairoa in February.
As a guest of the Italian Trade Association, Rural News Group Machinery Editor Mark Daniel took the opportunity to make an early November dash to Bologna to the 46th EIMA exhibition.
Livestock can be bred for lower methane emissions while also improving productivity at a rate greater than what the industry is currently achieving, research has shown.
The horticulture sector is a big winner from recent free trade deals sealed with the Gulf states, says Associate Agriculture Minister Nicola Grigg.
OPINION: NIWA has long weathered complaints about alleged stifling of competition in forecasting, and more recently, claims of lack of…
OPINION: Adding to calls to get banks to 'back off', NZ Agri Brokers director Andrew Laming has revealed that the…