Hunger for farm assets

On a sunny March afternoon, 11 Chinese executives armed with digital cameras and iPads got out of a van on Brazil's highway BR-163 to photograph soyabean-laden trucks headed to export terminals.

Dressed in polo shirts, jeans and boots, the officials from five state-owned companies, which together imported 40 per cent of China's soyabeans last year, had travelled six hours to see the oilseed being moved from farms to ports during a tour organised by Rabobank of the Netherlands.

They are part of a growing Chinese army that is scouring the world for farm assets or food technologies that can be brought to the world's most-populous nation.

China is headed to spend a record this year on food assets and farms after a US$32.7 billion splurge in the past five years, up from just US$4.2 billion in the previous five years.

The drive for assets, from Brazil to the United States and Australia, has ignited concern heightened by Shuanghui International's US$4.7 billion deal to buy Smithfield Foods of the US, the world's biggest pig producer.

Michael Whitehead, an agribusiness research director at Australia & New Zealand Banking, said: "There is immense interest and exploration by Chinese investors right across the agriculture sector. We know of Chinese companies which are fairly well down the track in their due diligence of a whole range of things, whether it's dairy, wine, protein, or grain."