I read that Labour sold the equivalent of the crafer famrs every single month they were in office. Our exports to China have increased a phenominal amount of the last 3 years and this whole thing is damaging for our relationahip with them. Like it or not China has kept us in good shape since the recession. If it were any western country people wouldn't give a s***. It is quite a sad reflection on NZ when this becomes such a big issue yet massive amounts of our land are owned by Aussie, Britain etc and no one cares.

Nice sentiment John but sadly both sides of the house are guilty of letting this current situation go on for far too long. The day I can buy freehold land in China is the day the reciprocal should apply.

The root of this problem lies in how indebted these farms became in the first place. Who is really to blame? Australian banks and fractional reserve banking. The day kiwis wake up and realise this the better we will be, but instead we all sit back and whinge and do nothing about it. Good place to start is switching your banking to a NZ owned institution such as Kiwibank or TSB. Watch "Money as Debt" on the internet if you don't believe me.

Think positive and act positive.

Contrary to what is said out there, there is no shortage of investment capital in NZ. They simply have been invested in the wrong place.

$7 billion in finance companies are in default and just 10% of that will buy Crafar farms 3 times over.

There is a time for a government top act and closing the door after the horses have bolted ain't it. Making it really worthwhile for New Zealanders to invest in farms is. Maybe a tax incentive?

Get the picture?

Interesting article and I agree with most of opinions given. However, stating that Landcorp should buy it because it "was set up to buy farmland and manage it for us" is quite untrue and sounds like something from a communist country (Govt owns all land and allows peasants to farm it). Once upon a time, Landcorps predessor was set up to settle war veterans and even now their role is quite different to that stated in the article. According to the state owned enterprises act (paraphrased) the role of a SOE is to make money for their shareholder (Govt). Nothing about being socially responsible or fair to its NZ competitors (other NZ farmers) which would surely be a requirement if they were truly farming for us and not just another Govt revenue stream (like traffic fines and taxation).

It bemuses me why the receivers for this group of farms owned by the Crafar family hadn't listed the farms separately - there is no doubt the majority if not all would be sold by now.

More pressure needs to be put on the receivers who at the end of the day are in control of who purchases the properties. If they had any interest in seeing New Zealand land owned by New Zealand people, they would have split the properties and sold them already - and probably made more money back for the banks and family too.

Bizarre.

The chinese are quite willing to buy our farms, very wise.they also wont allow foreign ownership of their own lands.also wise. why are we so stupid? long term lease? yes. foreign ownership? no. look how well china did on the "lease" of hong kong. ownership of new zealand land should be the sole privilage of new zealand citizens only.

I have no problem with the Chinese people but I do have a problem with their one-party state government. It's the same as liking Americans but hating the Bush administration. What will happen is this: the Chinese will buy up as many of our fire-sale assets as possible. The profits will go overseas. The present government will allow as many Chinese millionaires in as possible. This is because flicking off the assets will not reduce the mounting overseas debt. When there are sufficient numbers of Chinese residents there will be the formation of a political party. Then by dint of numbers we will be working for China and New Zealand will become New China. This scenario can be extrapolated to include any foreign power which an economic imperialistic bent.

John Pagani's opening sentence giving an angle to the debate: "If you don't mind the Crafar farms being sold overseas, how will you feel when the last square inch of New Zealand farmland goes?"

How do you make a logical jump from selling a few farms to the inevitable dis-possession of an entire country! Even if you use a "thin end of the wedge/top of the slippery slope" argument, you at least have to explain the cause-and-effect process that supposedly inevitably results.

There isn't one. So the rest of the post is downhill.

"Once the farms are sold to Chinese buyers there will be virtually nothing to stop all the rest of our farmland being sold overseas as well."

Yes there is. The OIA is there. More importantly, there are thousands of NZ farmers, who do what they do not just for monetary gain, but also as a lifestyle choice - and the desire to pass it on to their offspring.

So if they want to sell, is Pagani prepared to

a. stump up with the cash?

b. roll up his sleeves and milk cows twice a day?

Thought not.

"As a country we haven't earned more than we spent since 1973...Here's the main reason we spend more than we earn as a country: Foreign investors here make more money out of New Zealand than our puny investments overseas make".

His argument is falsified by his own argument. There were severe restrictions on foreign investment 1973 onwards, until at least 1984. It was the days of National Development Conferences, Think Big, and government ensuring everything was "NZ owned", or subsidising competition to the private owned local and overseas players, e.g. State Insurance.

That's what racked up the deficits! Trying to maintain a way of life, when we had to change, and become more compet

I agree that the Crafar farms should not be sold to China, but nor should they go to Fay's consortium or even to LandCorp if it means farming at industrial scale. The heart of New Zealand farming is that it is owner-operated and preferably a family business. When farmers can think of their land as managed and enhanced over generations, they have the required commitment to maintain ecosystems, soil and plant health, and the welfare of their animals. In several cases it was Crafar stock managers who dobbed the owners for animal cruelty, water pollution, etc. The Crafar holdings need to be split up and sold separately to individual farmers, and we need tighter regulation on property aggregation as well as foreign sale. It doesn't worry me at all if the farm owners are Chinese, as long as they live on the property.

Richard #1 What Labour did in the past is totally irrelevant and if you haven't heard David Shearer's position 'more fool' you. We are in the second term of a Key government and blaming Labour ad infinitum for every past mistake in the history of NZ is plain idiotic.

John #blog - I think the reality is that nation states are becoming irrelevant in this global economy, and while I too would prefer to see the farms in NZ hands in perpetua, I'm not inspired by the likes of Sir M Fay who is simply using the situation to get what he wants (just look at his past record).

#3 Stormer, agree about the sentiments etcetera. Like John, I do find China's intentions a bit scary and think the Americans do too, hence their renewed interest in Asia, Aussie and NZ of late.