Real Estate Institute boss Peter McDonald has backed a bid by state-owned farmer Landcorp to purchase the Crafar empire.

Battling dairy farmer Allan Crafar is confident he can come up with the more than $200 million he needs to settle his debts by 4pm today.

The Chinese backed bid to buy up 16 Crafar family farms in receivership has been lodged with the Overseas Investment Office.

State-owned Landcorp Farming will meet today to decide whether to bid for 16 farms from the Crafar empire being sold by receivers.

Nearly 90pc of Fonterra's 10,500 farmer shareholders have voted to approve a new share trading plan.

Fonterra's farmer shareholders today voted in favour of the Trading Among Farmers proposal, approving plans to make its stock tradeable among themselves, freeing up capital for new investments.

Fonterra's farmers are voting today on whether to allow trading of shares in the co-op among themselves.

May Wang has upped her payment to creditors in her failed property development company to 6c in the dollar.

Fonterra chief executive Andrew Ferrier says tomorrow's vote on whether to start share-trading among farmers is the most important decision for its farmers since the co-op was created.

Landcorp, the state owned farming company, says its bid for the Crafar farms will be a "clean bid".

The Chinese-backed firm fronting a bid to purchase the Crafar farms has yet to relodge its application for OIO approval, less than a week before tenders close.

The rural property sector remains stagnant because prices and sales are being dictated by banks, REINZ says.