‘Milk from the purest place on earth’: examining Chinese investments in the Australian dairy sector

Abstract

This article explores the emerging intersections between the shift towards higher quality food consumption in China and Chinese investment in overseas farmland. Based on an ethnographic study of a Chinese company acquiring one of Australia’s largest dairy farms, the article argues that the linkage between imported Australian milk and perceptions of safety and quality has served as a powerful driver of Chinese investment in overseas farmland—a linkage that has largely been overlooked by literature on China’s role in the global land rush. Drawing on the notion of ‘quality imaginaries’, the paper shows how images of Australian farmland as natural, pure, and geographically isolated have been mobilized by the investor company to position itself as provider of fresh, premium milk in the Chinese market. While such place-based qualities constitute a prized advantage, ironically, they also present a looming risk as the investor company struggles to reconcile fresh milk’s perishability with the farm’s location at the ‘edge of the world’. Thus, the case study not only demonstrates how cultural meanings tied to food and eating shape the ways in which investors imagine land’s affordances and possibilities but also draws attention to land’s materiality as a factor that both facilitates and destabilizes investment in farmland.

Introduction to symposium ‘Reimagining land: materiality, affect and the uneven trajectories of land transformation’

“…However, when it comes to concrete cases of farmland investment and transformations, the role of material aspects has mostly featured only in a loose, more presupposed manner. The papers by Böhme (2020a) and Visser (2020) show that when farmland investments take shape in specific farm sites, optimistic land imaginaries can meet different realities where the materiality of environmental conditions constitute obstacles to the envisaged projects. Böhme depicts how Chinese investors mobilize 'quality imaginaries' of Australian farmland to market fresh milk to affluent, food safety concerned Chinese consumers.…”

“Protein” Industry Convergence and Its Implications for Resilient and Equitable Food Systems

“…In late 2020, Kerry Group reportedly hired advisors to consider selling its consumer food units, in order to fund acquisitions in food ingredients and flavors-a market in which it is more dominant (Nair et al, 2020). As Yili Group and China Mengniu have increased their sales and market share, encouraged by government policies, China has transformed from a nation that once shunned dairy as a "barbarian" food to the third-largest dairy producer in the world (Böhme, 2021). Milk suppliers have increased in size, as well as expanded their use of more genetically uniform foreign breeds of cattle-there are now more than 40 farms in China with herds of 10,000+ cows (Sharma and Rou, 2014).…”

Ungleiche ländliche Räume

“…Dies bedeutet im Umkehrschluss, dass auch Investor*innen mit einem eher kurzfristigen Anlagehorizont, wie Private Equity Fonds, ein nicht unerhebliches Maß an Arbeit und Kreativität in die Organisation und Kontrolle von materiellen Produktionsprozessen auf den von ihnen erworbenen Agrarflächen investieren, wie Ouma (2020) am Beispiel Tansanias aufzeigt. Jüngere Forschungen aus Russland und Australien zeigen weiterhin, wie die Konzentration auf bestimmte materielle Faktoren (wie Bodenqualität) zur Vernachlässigung anderer Faktoren (wie Klima) führen kann (Visser 2021) und wie die Abgeschiedenheit Tasmaniens zwar für Marketingzwecke in Wert gesetzt werden, jedoch mit infrastrukturellen und logistischen Herausforderungen verbunden sein kann (Böhme 2021). Auch wenn im Kontext des globalen Land Rushs das Verhältnis zwischen Kapital und Land(-wirtschaft) zunehmend in einer neuen sozialräumlichen Form -nämlich der der Finanzanlageklasse -gerinnt, bleibt die Analyse der Potentiale und Grenzen des Materiellen im kapitalistischen Akkumulationsprozess also essenziell für das Verständnis der gegenwärtig zu beobachtenden Transformationsprozesse von Land.…”