{"id":2170,"date":"2025-09-04T20:51:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T20:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/2170\/"},"modified":"2025-09-04T20:51:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T20:51:08","slug":"fourth-hawkes-bay-farm-in-five-months-sold-to-overseas-buyers-for-forestry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/2170\/","title":{"rendered":"Fourth Hawke\u2019s Bay farm in five months sold to overseas buyers for forestry"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kauri Forestry LP is owned by a family company based in Switzerland and Germany.<\/p>\n

It plans to convert both farms into a forest, with planting expected during 2026 and 2027, mainly in radiata pine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce matured, the crop of trees will be harvested and replanted,\u201d the OIO decision stated.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe location of the four Central Hawke’s Bay farms that have been bought this year by overseas buyers for forestry conversion. Photo \/ Google Maps<\/p>\n

Kauri Forestry LP also owns the 800ha Te Manuiri Station<\/a> further south in Omakere, which it bought earlier this year.<\/p>\n

The farms it has bought feature mainly steep country classified as land use capability 7 or 6 (for comparison, the worst and steepest land is LUC 8).<\/p>\n

Che Charteris, chief executive of Craigmore Sustainables, which represents Kauri Forestry LP, said it was careful to buy land for forestry that was not good for farming.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot all land use class 7 is good for forestry [either], some of it is too erodible, so it\u2019s actually a really narrow class,\u201d he said, in terms of buying the right blocks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt has to be too steep for farming, but not too steep for forestry.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest purchase struck that balance, and \u201crounds that Waipuna block out quite nicely\u201d in terms of connecting with the neighbouring property.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to pick the eyes out of the community, and we don\u2019t want to create an environmental issue either by planting trees in the wrong place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charteris said a new law expected to pass soon (the Forestry Conversion Amendment Bill<\/a>), coupled with the rise in sheep and beef prices, should \u201cscare off those ratbags that are chasing that rolling [farm] country for trees\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to look for land that is too marginal for farming – either stations that are rundown or too steep, and that is going to be land use class 7.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 344ha farm on Nilsson Rd was bought from the Marriott FT trust. It has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n

The farm sold for $3.76 million, according to realestate.co.nz.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a 480ha farm in Waipukurau<\/a> has been sold to a buyer from Singapore.<\/p>\n

Fed Farmers says \u2018not just a farm gone\u2019<\/p>\n

Federated Farmers Hawke\u2019s Bay president Jim Galloway said another farm conversion in the region was disappointing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not just a farm gone. We are all interconnected.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou might say it is on class 7 hills, but … that steeper country is our breeding country. So that supplies our finishing [farms].\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, thousands of lambs were bought from steep hill country and then finished (or grown) on flatter land around Hawke\u2019s Bay, before going to the freezing works.<\/p>\n

He said forestry conversions had other flow-on impacts, such as less work for companies and industries that relied on farms, and reducing rolls at rural schools that supported farming families.<\/p>\n

On a positive note, Galloway said sheep and beef prices were strong, which could help protect farms against conversions.<\/p>\n

The Forestry Conversion Amendment Bill was aimed more at protecting LUC 1-5 farmland from conversion, rather than steeper country, he said.<\/p>\n

The LUC system classifies land based on how productive it is, and takes into account features such as climate, soil, slope, vegetation and erodibility.<\/p>\n

LUC 1 is the most productive land and LUC 8 is the least productive.<\/p>\n

The Herald revealed this month that overseas forestry companies have spent nearly $1 billion <\/a>buying more than 100,000 hectares of New Zealand farmland over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Gary Hamilton-Irvine is a Hawke\u2019s Bay-based reporter who covers a range of news topics, including business, councils, breaking news and cyclone recovery. He formerly worked at News Corp Australia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kauri Forestry LP is owned by a family company based in Switzerland and Germany. It plans to convert…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2171,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1561,3246,3241,3239,3237,3245,3233,1342,2082,3247,3238,3232,1976,78,296,3242,3234,3244,111,43,139,69,3236,2171,3240,3243,3235,61],"class_list":["post-2170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-bay","tag-both","tag-bought","tag-buyer","tag-buyers","tag-convert","tag-farm","tag-five","tag-for","tag-forest","tag-forestry","tag-fourth","tag-hawkes","tag-in","tag-into","tag-large","tag-months","tag-neighbours","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-overseas","tag-plans","tag-recently","tag-snapped","tag-sold","tag-to"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}