Skip links
Skip to Content
play
Live
Show navigation menu
Navigation menu
News
Show more news sections
Middle East
Africa
Asia
US & Canada
Latin America
Europe
Asia Pacific
Israel War on Gaza
Features
Opinion
Video
More
Show more sections
Economy
Ukraine war
Coronavirus
Climate Crisis
Investigations
Interactives
In Pictures
Science & Technology
Sport
Podcasts
play
Live
Click here to search
search
In Pictures
Gallery
In Pictures: Australia’s farms
State-owned companies from China and the Middle East are looking to Australia to secure future food supplies.
As companies from China and the Middle East are increasingly looking to secure future food supplies, policy analysts and farmers are concerned that Australia may lose control of its prime agricultural assets
Published On 16 Dec 2010
16 Dec 2010
facebook
twitter
whatsapp
copylink
101 East(***)s Kath Hearn travelled through Australia to find out more
Is selling farms to foreign owners a way to generate valuable foreign investment or is Australia taking a short-sighted approach to its own food security concerns?
Professor Julian Cribb believes that governments are not paying enough attention to food security
He says: "It could happen in weeks, you could see the price of food in the supermarkets double or triple if there was a serious food famine in some part of the world."
Companies from the Middle East and China spend billions of dollars buying up Australian farmland and agribusinesses, so some believe that these investments inject a much needed stimulus into the Tasmanian economy
For Jim and Pauline Hursey, it has been a longstanding dream to own a dairy farm. Four years ago, it became reality when they bought a farm in northern Tasmania
When the global recession hit, milk prices were slashed to record lows [GALLO/GETTY]
Attempting to keep up with mounting bills, the Hurseys(***) have reluctantly decided to put their farm up for sale
Senator Bill Heffernan, a federal Australian MP, and Michael Gordon from Bedand Pastoral Company share their views from both sides of the farmland debate