PGG Wrightson Real Estate says there is increasing interest from European farmers and investors who want to buy farms in New Zealand.

The rural real estate company is preparing to advertise properties from around the country, at next month’s British equilivant of Field Days, called Cereals.

PGG Wrightson Real Estate General Manager Stuart Cooper says farmers in the United Kingdom are actively looking to connect with New Zealand.

“What we’re seeing now is people out of Europe, firstly the famers who are looking to migrate, and they’re interested in buying farms so they’ve got somewhere to live, work and operate from.

"Secondly it is kiwis who’ve been in the UK for quite a while, gone there…got into good jobs, acquired a fair degree of wealth and want to bring some money back home to either buy a farm, perhaps as an investment, or to set themselves up for retirement."

Stuart Cooper says lifestyle is the main attraction for European farmers.

“Farming in the UK is not actually very easy. They have subsidies and stuff going on over there, that’s one aspect of it.

"The second aspect is lifestyle, particularly over in Europe. People can get a lifestyle .in this part of the world that they couldn’t even dream of in the UK.

"Things like congestion and so forth. If you go to most places in rural New Zealand it’s hard to find a traffic jam, where as ihat situation is common, even in the rural areas, in the UK now."

PGG Wrightson Real Estate is currently on a similar marketing mission in Australia, but this time attempting to lure back Kiwi dairy farmers who migrated there in the 1990’s, and are now looking to come home.