The new Government will tighten the rules over foreigners being able to buy farmland.



Farm properties have always been regarded as "sensitive" assets and have required a minister to allow them to be sold, on the advice of the Overseas Investment Office (OIO).



Trade Minister David Parker told Radio New Zealand on Wednesday the Government would tighten the discretion around farm sales.



​"At the moment they are virtually all waved through, we think the ministerial discretion should be narrowed. Our reasons for that are that young farmers graduating from sharemilker to farmer shouldn't be priced out by foreign buyers."

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"Foreign buyers of New Zealand land don't generally increase farm output, they use New Zealand farm systems and New Zealand managers so we don't think there should be any economic cost in saying they should be New Zealand owned as well," Parker said.

MARK TAYLOR/STUFF Milk New Zealand, owned by Chinese interests, now sends fresh milk to China. Managing director Terry Lee and CEO of agribusiness for Theland Tahi Farm Group Justine Kidd, at the launch of the export initiative in September.

Between 2008 and 2015, 724 sales of sensitive assets were approved and only 11 declined.

The new Minister for Land Information, Eugenie Sage, has responsibility for OIO consents. She has indicated the present "rubber stamping" of sales would stop.

Federated Farmers has been reluctant to criticise sales, saying it supports direct overseas investment.

However, former president William Rolleston said for sensitive assets such as farm land there needed to be demonstrable benefits for New Zealand, and monitoring and enforcement to ensure promised benefits were actually delivered on.

The OIO has been disparaged for carrying out "desk-top exercises", and never visiting properties themselves after they have been sold.

In the decade 2007 to 2016, each year an average of 131,012 hectares of freehold and 51,177 ha of leasehold land was approved for sale.

The latest case to cause controversy is the sale of Southland's 1359 ha Jericho Station to a Chinese buyer, who has only recently lodged an OIO application. A New Zealand bidder has also attempted to buy the Landcorp property but was initially turned down.

Prior to this year's election, National had promised to carve up Landcorp to provide farms to young Kiwi farmers in a lease to buy deal, but parties in the coalition Government opposed the policy.

One of the higher profile foreign farm purchases was for the run down Crafar farms, which were bought for $200 million in 2012 and are now run by Chinese-owned Milk New Zealand.

Milk New Zealand is the management subsidiary of Shanghai Pengxin, and owns 29 farms throughout the country, which includes the Crafar farms in the central North Island, and 13 farms in the South Island known as Purata Farming.

Then-prime minister John Key extolled the improved performance of the 16 farms in defending the proposed sale of 13,800 ha Lochinver Station near Lake Taupo. But the latter sale for $88m was rejected in 2015 because it would have created few jobs, National minister Paula Bennett said at the time.

Milk New Zealand has recently started air freighting more than 60,000 litres of fresh milk to China a month.