Rural New Zealand In Irish Sights

First it was the English, now it’s the Irish who are eying up New Zealand’s rural properties.

Bayleys Canterbury director Shane OBrien has just returned from Ireland, where he says interest in settling in New Zealand is high among Irish farmers, particularly in the north.

"We've been pleasantly surprised by the level of interest", says OBrien.

We had more than 50 people at the seminar we held in Antrim. These are all people who are interested in potentially buying rural land here and immigrating.

Irish farmers wanting to emigrate because of the tough conditions in Ireland have traditionally bought land in England, but they do not see farming there as sustainable in the long term. Increasingly they are looking further afield to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

New Zealand is their preferred choice because Canada has quite a different style of farming and Australia can be quite extreme in terms of drought. New Zealand has a very similar style of farming, and when you convert pounds or Euros to New Zealand dollars, the land is still relatively affordable, OBrien says.

In Northern Ireland, farming is dominated by dairying and farmers there are watching with interest the rise of dairying in New Zealand.

They are well versed in our current dairy boom and are excited by the long term outlook for dairying in New Zealand, says Shane OBrien.

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