With just over five weeks to go until the General Election, Labour has unveiled its agricultural manifesto and the party is promising to crack down on foreigners buying farmland.

In Napier on Thursday Labour leader Phil Goff declared his party’s intentions for agriculture saying that while people are New Zealand’s greatest asset, they are followed closely by the land.

The party says that buying New Zealand land should be a privilege not a right, and if it wins the election foreigners will have to invest significantly in downstream processing and show they will be creating additional jobs if they are to buy farms or forest.   

Labour agriculture spokesman Damien O’Connor says the policies are designed to keep farms in New Zealand hands.

"We see it becoming increasingly difficult for young New Zealanders to get into farming. The price of farmland is continuing to escalate and with the aggregation of farming in the country, with the units getting bigger, it’s becoming almost impossible now for young New Zealanders to aspire to own a farm."

And he says the toughening of the laws surrounding foreign farm purchases will help.

"So we have to do something to stop what is increasing interest, growing interest and quite a steady stream of purchases of New Zealand land by foreigners."

Labour would also restore the 12.5 percent R&D tax credits and double the funding of the Sustainable Farming Fund to $16 million.     

And Damien O’Connor says agriculture will be coming into the Emissions Trading Scheme in 2013 as previously scheduled.

"You know we have announced that agriculture will be brought forward into the ETS on the original date we announced. But that money we save will be reinvested back into research and development." 

Mr O’Connor says the Labour will also change the rules that govern the Reserve Bank so it must take into account the impact of its decisions on exporters, bringing more stability to the currency.

In a media release Federated Farmers President Bruce Wills said he was concerned at the interventionist tone of much of  Labour’s policy.

He said ‘overall Labour earns a couple of bouquets, but mostly brickbats. This policy is certainly not going to excite or encourage our rural communities’.