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AgResearch's thirst for extra capital and dwindling levels of industry and public funding have forced the Crown research institute to sell its only high-altitude research farm.
AgResearch chief financial officer Geoff Balme said it had sold its 3340ha Tara Hills property at the southern end of the Mackenzie Country to the Ngai Tahu tribe.
Balme would not disclose the sum paid by the South Island's largest iwi, who had first right of refusal under the terms of its Treaty settlement, but real estate agents PGG Wrightson yesterday estimated the farm could have fetched $4.5 million to $5 million, given it is home to more than 7000 merino sheep and more than 300 cattle.
Balme said dwindling levels of funding for the kind of science conducted at the station - including research into merino sheep and dryland high country soil and pasture - meant AgResearch's investment in the property was no longer viable.
"Most of the feelings were that what needed to be studied had probably been completed," he said.
Future AgResearch needs in the South Island high country would be better met on privately owned farms without the need for the significant capital cost of land ownership.
Balme also predicted less high-country farmland would be available in the future, because of the government's ongoing review of high-country pastoral leases.
"The sale will enable AgResearch to consolidate science on to fewer farms and to invest in other infrastructure," he said.
That included modernising buildings and laboratories at the institute's five campuses around the country - many of which were constructed in the 1960s and 1970s.
Although research into sheep fertility was also conducted at Tara HIlls, Balme said this would continue at some of AgResearch's remaining 15 farms, although their future was also up for review .
"We're looking at other farms that we could probably justify selling because the amount of science being done on them is limited."
