12 Mar 2014

Landcorp moving more into farm management

4:00 pm on 12 March 2014

The state-owned farming enterprise Landcorp is shifting its focus from outright farm ownership to management and partnerships.

The country's biggest farming operation runs more than one and a half million stock units on 137 properties spread through the country.

It leases 32 of those from other owners and is holding seven others on behalf of the Crown, as part of potentiasl Treaty settlements.

Landcorp is undergoing an internal as well as a Treasury-run review of its operations.

Chief executive Steven Carden says part of its strategy is to look at having less emphasis on farm ownership in the future and more focus on managing farms for other owners, such as the former Crafar dairy farms in the North Island which it's sharemilking in partnership with Chinese owner Shanghai Pengxin.

"What Landcorp does really well is manage farms," Mr Carden says, who says it's a strategy developed by the board, not something required of Landcorp by the Government.

There are some farms, he adds, that are too strategic to sell.