To Sell Or Not To Sell

It’s an interesting trend and one we really need to be aware of here in the United States; investors from around the world purchasing US farmland as a “hedge commodity” for their portfolios. The Chinese government and Chinese businesses in recent years have purchased a large amount of agricultural land and facilities around the world to feed its growing population. According to international business consultant John Doggett, at the end of 2009 there were more than a million Chinese farmers in Africa, and the best farm land in Australia is now primarily owned by Chinese purchasers who want to use that land for the coal that is under that land. Earlier this year sixteen of the largest dairy farms in New Zealand were purchased by a state owned company from China in order to gain more control of milk imports - China imports the majority of their milk from New Zealand. Doggett predicts that before long Chinese investors will be bidding on American farmland. Interestingly, China is our biggest foreign creditor, which rather puts us between a rock and a hard place, or should that be between a rock and a “special economic zone”?