WAFARMERS has backed calls for a national public register and audit that will track details of every farm sale to foreign investors.
Amid widespread concerns Australia is selling off its farmland to other countries who are looking to ensure their own future food supply, Independent Senator, Nick Xenophon, will introduce draft laws within the next two weeks to regulate the amount of farmland sold off to foreign investors.
Mr Xenophon said foreign governments should not be allowed to buy up Australian land to feed their populations when the Australian Government has not looked at whether there will be enough production in the future to feed the Australian population.
WAFarmers president, Mike Norton, said the lack of information about the level of foreign investment in Australian farms had been a concern for some time.
"A whole lot of property sales have quietly been slipping under the radar for a considerable period of time," Mr Norton said.
We have always been headed off at the pass with comments to the effect that it is all under the control of the Foreign Investment Review Board, but obviously it is up on the radar screen now as large as life, and this is a good thing.
"A lot of people would like to know just how much of our land has been seeded to offshore interests.
"It is very easy with the big companies to find out (what they own), but we don't know how many of the smaller operations are now foreign-owned."
Mr Norton said with the poor agricultural season in WA, the value of some rural land has dropped 25 to 40 per cent, and with that sort of a huge decrease, neighbouring or local farmers can't buy these farms, as their equity has also decreased.
"That leaves the gate wide open for outside investors to come in and pick up some pretty cheap assets, as competition from local farmers who would like to buy land is no longer there," Mr Norton said.
"Without the equity, banks won't support them, so this is a double whammy."
