In the past 18 months, $20 million of Northland dairy farms have been sold to Waikato, King Country, Taranaki, Canterbury, and Westland farmers moving into the province.
“The motivation is simply about the economics of dairy farming – and the price of quality primary productive land in Northland compared to most other parts of the country,” Bayleys’ Northland rural manager Tony Grindle said.
Grindle said that as a generalisation, most young Northland farmers wanting to get into the dairying sector simply didn’t have the comparable financial muscle being brought to the region by out-of-town buyers who were selling up their high-value units in New Zealand’s most productive pastoral zones.
Latest figures from the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand show the average cost a hectare of dairy farms in Northland was $15,555. By comparison, the REINZ figures showed the average cost of dairy farms in the Waikato was $49,000/ha, while in Taranaki it was as high as $55,000/ha.
Grindle said there were a number of reasons why Northland farmers had chosen now as a good time to exit the market, ranging from the drop in Fonterra’s forecast milksolids payout for the 2024-15 financial year, and a lack of succession planning for some older farmers looking to retire, to the second consecutive dry season for those in the western coastal region.
Seminars on exciting Northland dairy opportunities are being held at the Bayleys office in Hamilton, on October 15, and at venues in Taranaki and Manawatu.
Among the Northland dairy farming units that changed hands to in the past year were:
- A 292ha Pouto dairy farm milking almost 600 cows which sold to Taranaki buyers for $3.7m
- A 370ha Ruawai dairy farm producing 220,000kg of milksolids bought by a Canterbury farmer for $7.3m
- A 283ha mixed-use beef and dairying unit at Matakohe bought by a Canterbury farmer for $2.7m
- An 80ha Ruawai dairying unit sold to a Canterbury farmer for $2.8m
- Whangarei and Maungaturoto farms sold to buyers from Waikato
- A 425ha Aranga farm sold to a King Country buyer for $2.7m
- A 285ha Dargaville dairying unit sold to a buyer from West Coast for $1.33m
