About 14 percent of Australian farmland is owned by foreigners

Therefore the foreign ownership of agricultural land has been registered for the first time since July 2015. A total of 53.0 million hectares are in the hands of non-Australians as of June 30, 2021, according to current data from the Tax Authority on Ownership and Lease of Agricultural Land; Their share of total agricultural area was 14.1%, an increase of 0.3% over the previous year.

The number of foreign-owned farms increased by 3.9% to 10,284. It should be noted, however, that with these data, Australians can also be co-owners of land or farms, for example, when holding cooperatives or companies.

Despite the current political tensions and agrarian trade conflicts with China, large investors continued to emerge from the People’s Republic. By mid-2021, they would have cultivated a total of 8.50 million hectares, thus 2.3% of arable land and, above all, grazing land in Australia.

Last year, however, the Chinese sold a large livestock and cotton farm, thus reducing the area of ​​the farm to 700,000 hectares or 7.6% by 2020. Individuals or companies from the United Kingdom ranked second among foreign farmers. As of June 2021, their total area is 8.25 million hectares; This is 2.2% of Australia’s agricultural area.

With 2.93 million hectares, the United States ranks third among foreign farmers; The Dutch occupied 2.82 million hectares of land. The Dutch occupied an area of ​​1.66 million hectares, ignoring the lease alone. Mostly, i.e. 85%, the land cultivated by foreigners is used for animal production, primarily beef and milk.

3.8% of agricultural crops are produced in these areas; The other 2.8% are overgrown with forest. So far 45.2 million hectares, or 83%, of the large area of ​​non-Australian production has been leased.

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