4 ms·

China does a similar thing with agriculture. Huge plots of land in Australia and New Zealand are controlled by Chinese farming companies and staffed by Chinese.

China does a similar thing with agriculture. Huge plots of land in Australia and New Zealand are controlled by Chinese farming companies and staffed by Chinese. All the food they produce goes back to China.

robbiep 9y ago
It is not true that they mainly (or even significantly) employ chinese on Australian Farms - these farms are generally managed by the previous owners or managers and staffed by Australians, with australian Agronomists. In actual fact, very little changes on a day to day basis, except there is more funds available for infrastructure and capital goods purchase (and property values are driven up). Which, when you think about it, makes the best managerial sense - What the hell is a chinese person going to do coming to australia and farming - they don't know the conditions, they don't know the land - that's a quick way to destroy all the value they hope to create. Local know-how is essential in agriculture. + they wouldn't be able to get enough on 457's to come in and run it even if they wanted to import all their workers. Source: Australian, from a farm, neighbouring farms have been purchased by chinese buyers
- icantdrive55 9y ago
  Unless the farm buyer is a citizen of Australia, doesn't it bother the average citizen that foreigners can buy businesses, and property? Plus--doesn't Australia worry about nutrient depletion of their farm lands for food sent overseas? Once those nutrients are gone; they are stuck with buying nutrients/fertilizer forever. Plus--it's an island, with I imagine limited farming land?) Yes, in the USA we let anyone basically buy our land too. Want a house--just pick up the tele. I don't feel it's right. I'll probally get hammered for this post, but I just don't get it. Plus--we can't own squat in most of these emerging countries.
- robbiep 9y ago
  to the dead post: Australia has always relied on capital inflows for infrastructure and capital improvement. in the 30s-50s it was from the UK, the 60s and 70s from the US (especially with the growth and introduction of Cotton in Australia), the 80-90s from Japan, and now China. All those waves of investment have come with fears of 'takeovers' and all of them have passed. maybe the current one will go for longer, who knows. Fear of foreign ownership are a little overhyped; they can't take the land with them and they must be good stewards of it in order to earn good returns. And they must employ locals in order to do that too - which has brought revitalisation to some regional areas that have gone through downturns.
- iamshs 9y ago
  Well Shepparton and Mooroopna has quite a substantial number if Chinese farm workers. In Safeway, nearly whole Saturday is busy with Chinese farm workers shopping. I haven't really enquired on which specific farm they work, because they generally shun interaction and also due to language barrier. Also, Shepparton has a substantial Punjabi farming population and I can tell you from experience that the farmers do take inputs from Tatura Agricultural institute but the management to production to packing is all Punjabis. Your comment is significantly false information. Shepparton is filled with people who don't have local know-how, but have developed it.
  - pm90 9y ago
    Punjabis are from India and Pakistan, not from China, if that wasn't clear to you. They have a reputation as good workers in agri businesses. See this article about how they invigorated Italy's cheese business: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/europe/08iht-italy08.html?mcubz=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/europe/08iht-italy08... (The article references most workers as being Sikhs. Sikhs are adherents of the religion of Sikhism, but I believe nearly all of them are ethnically Punjabis)
  - sfifs 9y ago
    Sounds like you might be unsure whether they are foreign contract workers or immigrants. Punjabis would almost certainly be immigrants
- sumedh 9y ago
  > What the hell is a chinese person going to do coming to australia and farming Met 2 Chinese guys from China in a hostel in Melbourne who could speak little, they said there going to work on a farm somewhere in rural Aus and lot of other other people from their village where working there. I didnt ask if they were working legally or not.
toomanybeersies 9y ago
You want to cite a source on that? Somewhere between 5-10% of NZ farmland and forestry is owned by foreign interests. That's not just China, but all other countries, of which Australia is a large investor in NZ. A large amount of this land is owned by super funds. Fonterra has an 84% market share in the dairy sector, Fonterra is a collective, owned by the individual farms. Now, the Chinese are building milk powder factories exclusively for export to China, and owned by Chinese companies. But they are employing local people, and constructed by locals, they aren't staffed by Chinese, because the hassle of trying to get a factory worth of workers immigrating to New Zealand isn't worth it, when you could just as easily pay locals. At the end of the day, you can't pay Chinese workers less, because there is a minimum wage. The suppliers to these factories are independent dairy farmers, there's little vertical integration here. In the end, these plants grow the economy and create jobs. Sure, in an ideal world, it would all be NZ owned, but nobody wants to cough up the cash here to build more plants. New Zealand is a small country, it has always relied heavily on foreign investment and ownership, and always will. The population and economy is too small to do it any other way, NZ has to turn to globalism in order to have a healthy, functioning economy.
- syphon7 9y ago
  Well you could just pay them illegally under the table. I'm ignorant about NZs economy, and you have good points/questions but I felt that it needed to be said. In the US we have huge migrant groups that are responsible for a large amount of the harvesting in this country, and most are paid well under minimum wage. Not saying it's right... just how it is.
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    Illegal migrants are easy to pay under minimum wage, because they're under the radar. However, illegal immigration to NZ is (comparatively) minuscule and you don't really hear about payments under the table, except in small businesses like restaurants, massage etc.
  - roel_v 9y ago
    How would you get sizeable groups of illegal farm helps into NZ? How would they live/send money back home/travel back home etc? NZ is a remote island, this is not a Mexico/Arizona situation. NZ native farmers are very in control of their farms and NZ's agriculture industry in general.
kiproping 9y ago
This happens in Africa, not Australia.
chiefalchemist 9y ago
Link? Please?

robbiep 9y ago

It is not true that they mainly (or even significantly) employ chinese on Australian Farms - these farms are generally managed by the previous owners or managers and staffed by Australians, with australian Agronomists. In actual fact, very little changes on a day to day basis, except there is more funds available for infrastructure and capital goods purchase (and property values are driven up). Which, when you think about it, makes the best managerial sense - What the hell is a chinese person going to do coming to australia and farming - they don't know the conditions, they don't know the land - that's a quick way to destroy all the value they hope to create. Local know-how is essential in agriculture. + they wouldn't be able to get enough on 457's to come in and run it even if they wanted to import all their workers. Source: Australian, from a farm, neighbouring farms have been purchased by chinese buyers

icantdrive55 9y ago
Unless the farm buyer is a citizen of Australia, doesn't it bother the average citizen that foreigners can buy businesses, and property? Plus--doesn't Australia worry about nutrient depletion of their farm lands for food sent overseas? Once those nutrients are gone; they are stuck with buying nutrients/fertilizer forever. Plus--it's an island, with I imagine limited farming land?) Yes, in the USA we let anyone basically buy our land too. Want a house--just pick up the tele. I don't feel it's right. I'll probally get hammered for this post, but I just don't get it. Plus--we can't own squat in most of these emerging countries.
robbiep 9y ago
to the dead post: Australia has always relied on capital inflows for infrastructure and capital improvement. in the 30s-50s it was from the UK, the 60s and 70s from the US (especially with the growth and introduction of Cotton in Australia), the 80-90s from Japan, and now China. All those waves of investment have come with fears of 'takeovers' and all of them have passed. maybe the current one will go for longer, who knows. Fear of foreign ownership are a little overhyped; they can't take the land with them and they must be good stewards of it in order to earn good returns. And they must employ locals in order to do that too - which has brought revitalisation to some regional areas that have gone through downturns.
iamshs 9y ago
Well Shepparton and Mooroopna has quite a substantial number if Chinese farm workers. In Safeway, nearly whole Saturday is busy with Chinese farm workers shopping. I haven't really enquired on which specific farm they work, because they generally shun interaction and also due to language barrier. Also, Shepparton has a substantial Punjabi farming population and I can tell you from experience that the farmers do take inputs from Tatura Agricultural institute but the management to production to packing is all Punjabis. Your comment is significantly false information. Shepparton is filled with people who don't have local know-how, but have developed it.
- pm90 9y ago
  Punjabis are from India and Pakistan, not from China, if that wasn't clear to you. They have a reputation as good workers in agri businesses. See this article about how they invigorated Italy's cheese business: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/europe/08iht-italy08.html?mcubz=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/world/europe/08iht-italy08... (The article references most workers as being Sikhs. Sikhs are adherents of the religion of Sikhism, but I believe nearly all of them are ethnically Punjabis)
- sfifs 9y ago
  Sounds like you might be unsure whether they are foreign contract workers or immigrants. Punjabis would almost certainly be immigrants
sumedh 9y ago
> What the hell is a chinese person going to do coming to australia and farming Met 2 Chinese guys from China in a hostel in Melbourne who could speak little, they said there going to work on a farm somewhere in rural Aus and lot of other other people from their village where working there. I didnt ask if they were working legally or not.

toomanybeersies 9y ago

You want to cite a source on that? Somewhere between 5-10% of NZ farmland and forestry is owned by foreign interests. That's not just China, but all other countries, of which Australia is a large investor in NZ. A large amount of this land is owned by super funds. Fonterra has an 84% market share in the dairy sector, Fonterra is a collective, owned by the individual farms. Now, the Chinese are building milk powder factories exclusively for export to China, and owned by Chinese companies. But they are employing local people, and constructed by locals, they aren't staffed by Chinese, because the hassle of trying to get a factory worth of workers immigrating to New Zealand isn't worth it, when you could just as easily pay locals. At the end of the day, you can't pay Chinese workers less, because there is a minimum wage. The suppliers to these factories are independent dairy farmers, there's little vertical integration here. In the end, these plants grow the economy and create jobs. Sure, in an ideal world, it would all be NZ owned, but nobody wants to cough up the cash here to build more plants. New Zealand is a small country, it has always relied heavily on foreign investment and ownership, and always will. The population and economy is too small to do it any other way, NZ has to turn to globalism in order to have a healthy, functioning economy.

syphon7 9y ago
Well you could just pay them illegally under the table. I'm ignorant about NZs economy, and you have good points/questions but I felt that it needed to be said. In the US we have huge migrant groups that are responsible for a large amount of the harvesting in this country, and most are paid well under minimum wage. Not saying it's right... just how it is.
- jpatokal 9y ago
  Illegal migrants are easy to pay under minimum wage, because they're under the radar. However, illegal immigration to NZ is (comparatively) minuscule and you don't really hear about payments under the table, except in small businesses like restaurants, massage etc.
- roel_v 9y ago
  How would you get sizeable groups of illegal farm helps into NZ? How would they live/send money back home/travel back home etc? NZ is a remote island, this is not a Mexico/Arizona situation. NZ native farmers are very in control of their farms and NZ's agriculture industry in general.

kiproping 9y ago

This happens in Africa, not Australia.

chiefalchemist 9y ago

Link? Please?