Fertilizer Markets and Finance

Chinese buyers, whose interest in foreign farmland has raised hackles from Argentina to Australia, have turned their attention to the UK –although for investment, rather than food security, reasons.

Knight Frank, the UK-based property consultancy, said it was, for the first time, “starting to see genuine bids” from Chinese investors wanting to buy UK farmland.

However, these were offers from private investors, rather than the funds whose appetite for large swathes foreign farmland has often met with controversy, largely for fear of growing food for shipping direct to China, and so denying the local market.

“These are personal Chinese buyers doing it for investment,” James Prewett, a regional head of farm sales for Knight Frank, said.

“It is different to a fund trying to buy 20,000 acres in East Anglia.”

‘Little piece of England’

Indeed, buyers are interested in smaller farmers, of £1m-2m, which “is not a big chunk of money” for a market in which the average value of agricultural land hit a record £6,295 an acre in the April-to-June, according to Knight Frank, with some lots going for £10,000 an acre.

Nonetheless, Chinese bidders had, even in losing out so far on auctions, including for a farm in Buuckinghamshire, helped lift the market by bidding up prices, and could become an increasing force, depending on whether more follow.

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