Australia: foreign investments favor large farms
17 January 2020
Over the past decades, the gap between large and small farms in Australia has widened as the foreign creditors have been tending to invest in large-scale operations, says agribusiness funds manager David Goodfellow. In particular, foreign investments enabled large farms to further expand their operations, implement new technologies and accordingly boost their efficiency. Meanwhile, smaller family farmers have been suffering from less access to finance and technology adoption, as compared to more favorable periods of 1950s and 1980s.
Australia’s family farms might become jeopardized unless the innovation and loan opportunities become equal for all market players. According to David Goodfellow, consolidation into cooperative groups as well as sharing the knowledge and resources could become a possible solution for small farms countrywide.