In Pictures: Australia’s farms

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