If people weren’t happy when a Chinese company, Agria, bought a 19% share of PGG Wrightson last year, it didn’t make the headlines yet the thought of selling land to Chinese causes an uproar.
Wrightson isn’t just a stock and station firm it does a lot of plant breeding.
In gaining a share of the company the new owners would have gained rights to intellectual property in grass species developed by Wrightson.
No-one can pick up land and take it with them but it’s very easy to take IP and use it somewhere else.
Homepaddock 
Speaking for myself, the only real fear is that the business culture of the Chinese applied to our dairy industry where we are acknowledged as world leaders who have innumerable barriers to trade confronting lil old NZ already, manifesting in a Sanlu like disaster that will impact on the rest of the NZ industry. The stated aim for the ongoing development of the current bidders for the Crafer Farms is to develop down stream processing that will expose our whole industry that was dented by the Sanlu incident and complete disaster for Fonterra was avoided only by the geographic separation.
I would have the same concern if the investment in PGGWrightson removed the control completely from NZ hands and resulted in a wholly owned Chinese Company operating under the cloak of acceptability enjoyed by NZ companies in the world markets, however I acknowledge the investment was possibly/likely good for the ongoing operation of PGGW.
LikeLike