UHT dairy factory planned for Northland

A controversial Chinese company bidding for a $1.5 billion slice of New Zealand's dairy industry  has plans to build a dairy factory in Northland.
The consortium, Natural Dairy (NZ) Holdings, plans to open an ultra-high-temperature  milk treatment plant on Wiroa Rd near Kerikeri this year to process and export milk to Asia.
Natural Dairy (NZ) Holding is being scrutinised by the Overseas Investment and the Serious Fraud Offices over its background and the proposed bid.
The company registered in the Cayman Islands, was renamed from The China Jin Hui Mining Corporation.
Its investors - and the farmers owning land surrounding the Wiroa Road property - met with Far North Mayor Wayne Brown and staff this month to discuss their plans.
Staff told councillors at a council meeting on Thursday it was likely consent would be granted.
Mr Brown said he had no concerns about the company being looked at by the Overseas Investment Office.
Commercial sensitivities prevented him from confirming if the land for the proposed dairy plant had already been purchased by the company, but he suggested the company could look at leasing the land from existing farmers.
"It's a significant investment in our area that could generate between 40 and 50 jobs, it's not our business that offshore investors are involved. All they need to come to us about is to apply for planning consent,"he said.
The same company planning the processing plant near Kerikeri is also bidding for the $1.5 billion purchase of assets of the former family farming giant, Alan Crafar's company NuGen, which went into receivership last year.
One of the properties involved, separate to the proposed milk treatment plant, is a former Crafar family farm on State Highway 10 in Waipapa.
It is  under negotiation after tenders closed on March 5.

 
 The deal is the first major deal to come under scrutiny after the New Zealand/China Fair Trade Agreement signed October 2008.
Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa spokesman Murray Horton said the deal meant New Zealand would become the milk cow for China.
"It would be the Chinese version of the British economic colonisation that dominated this country's agriculture up until the 1970s. So, instead of being a farm for Britain is will be a milk cow for China."
Farmers of New Zealand spokesman Ian Walker said New Zealanders had a double-standard about overseas investors.
"We are fine with companies sending production off-shore but don't like it when investors come to us.
"You can't put a farm in a suitcase, but you can put a Moro bar in one."