One-tenth of Australian farmland is owned or part foy foreign owned. Photo: Tamara Voninski
MORE than one-tenth of Australian farmland is owned or part-owned by foreign firms, according to a government report released yesterday. It cites buy-ups by mining companies as a key reason for foreign ownership.
The report, by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences, states that foreign interests also own about 9 per cent of water entitlements and just over 1 per cent of agricultural businesses.
However the report has been swiftly dismissed by the Coalition as ''a whitewash'' on the grounds that it relies on previously published figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and contains no information on the nationalities of foreign owners nor the value of agricultural production under foreign control.
The Age
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