Originally Posted by
BlackPeter
Well - lets face it, (some) NZ farmers are good in running their farms down (like Crafar) and others see farming just as a quick stunt before they subdivide their farms to sell them expensively to town folks and finance with the proceedings a lavish lifestyle at the Golden Bay (or wherever). Requiring land owners to hold a NZ passport doesn't help us in any way. Some NZ farmers look after their land, others just try to make money without caring about the next generation or NZ's interest.
Here is some news for you: Foreign farmers are probably not better than NZ farmers, but they are not worse either. And given, that the Chinese need the land for food production would I think that at least the subdivision risk is much lower.
If there is something we (as country) want from our farmers (like e.g. access to rivers and lakes, walking ways, a guarantee of ongoing food production, environmental conversation) than the right way would be to put this into law, and ask ALL farmers to follow these rules. I don't care whether the specific farmers are white, brown, yellow or black and whether they hold a NZ passport or not, as long as they follow the laws of the land.