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Bill Ralston - Source: ONE News -
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The spokesman for the Hong Kong-based business bidding for 16 Crafar dairy farms says the benefits of the sale are too good to be ignored.
The Save the Farms campaign that launched this week calls for New Zealand land to be kept in the hands of New Zealanders.
The group's spokesman, lawyer Tony Bouchier, said the aim of the campaign was to get a moratorium on the sale of land to overseas investors until a national discussion on the issue has taken place.
But Natural Dairy Holdings spokesman Bill Ralston said on TV ONE's Breakfast programme this morning any intelligent discussion on the issue needs to include benefits of the sale.
He said the sale of the farms, currently in receivership, would add upwards to $200 million a year in increased export earnings, create 120 jobs, and pump $5 million into getting young sharemilkers onto farms.
"If you put a moratorium on that, you stop them doing that. Who's going to provide those 120 jobs? Who's going to put that money back in the New Zealand economy?"
Ralston said the Save the Farms campaign represented a closed door policy, and that would spell disaster for the economy.
He said New Zealand did not have the capital base to invest as heavily as foreign outfits like Natural Dairy Holdings.
"The kind of development is heavily cost intensive. New Zealand can not afford to do it. To make UHT milk here in New Zealand is a way to really dramatically boost our income."
But he said he agreed with Bouchier that there should be a national discussion about the extent to which we sell off our land.
"It's about how much milk supply, for example, you want to deny Fonterra. At the moment I think this would be about 0.25% of the national milk supply involved. But when you get to about 15% of that milk supply going elsewhere, Fonterra could be in trouble. So you'd say, okay, we're not going to let a certain amount go."
Bouchier said he agreed the proposed Crafar sale was small in the grand scheme of things, but said the line needed to be drawn before it was too late.
"Let's keep the door closed before the horse bolts. Let's have that discussion."
He said selling land overseas also had the potential to inflate the value of our land and lock out potential farmers.
Natural Dairy Holdings' application is being assessed by the Overseas Investment Office.
Ralston said he was confident the deal will go through.
