The investment arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has purchased a new kiwifruit orchard in Bay of Plenty.

The investment is set to fund the work of its owner, the United States-based church known commonly as the Mormon Church.

Utah-based agricultural investor Farmland Reserve acquired the Three Roads property near Edgecumbe, with local firm Craigmore Sustainables set to manage it.

The deal went through the Overseas Investment Office in August, resulting from a multi-year relationship between the two firms.

Profits from the export-focused kiwifruit business will be shared between Craigmore and Farmland Reserve.

Farmland Reserve is a commercial, for-profit entity where its profits help fund the church’s religious, humanitarian and charitable work.

Employing thousands globally, it invested in farms and orchards in 29 of 50 US states and 10 countries across the Americas, Europe and most recently Australasia.

Farm land it owned in Australia grew crops like pistachio nuts, potatoes, onions, wheat and soya beans.

President and chief executive Doug Rose said kiwifruit consumption continued to rise globally, and New Zealand had ideal growing conditions for them.

“What an absolutely wonderful crop we have admired from a distance for some time,” he said.

“And I don’t know that there is a more beautiful country on the earth than New Zealand with a more beautiful people and culture.”

The orchard near Edgecumbe is the Mormon Church’s first New Zealand farmland investment. Photo / Getty Images

Rose said it was Farmland Reserve’s first investment in New Zealand.

However, the church held hundreds of millions of dollars in assets like property across the country.

He said it was grateful to fill the need for capital in New Zealand, as a “passive and patient” long-term investor, with Craigmore taking the operational lead.

“I think this need that Craigmore brought to us is showing that there is a capital need in New Zealand to support this very growing industry, because it’s very, very expensive to develop. Even one hectare of kiwifruit is costly and so most entities can’t do it.

“So we were excited to be able to come in and to fill that need, particularly given I believe some of the destruction that occurred after that cyclone [Gabrielle] and several years ago, and that really created kind of a capital gap.”

He said Farmland Reserve was not planning to set up as a charity in New Zealand.

Around half of the “partially-developed” 45ha property was planted in SunGold, and orchard manager Craigmore Sustainables planned to plant a further 17ha in the variety.

Chief executive Che Charteris said it was essential to use offshore investment with partners that shared the same values, in face of limited domestic capital.

“So it will be in the end about 37.5 to 38ha of SunGold kiwifruit orchard under canopy with good frost protection, good irrigation and hopefully some very good crops for the year to come.”

Charteris said kiwifruit orchard development was expenditure-heavy and could cost anywhere between $200,000 - $800,000 a hectare.

He said Farmland Reserve understood the long-term nature of the asset and the social community aspects that come with land ownership.

“Farmland Reserve are long term in their thinking, so it’s good to have that patient capital, that is willing to rely on New Zealand expertise.

“It’s a really good example of how New Zealand can utilise the right kind of offshore capital in a way that values local expertise and local influence and control without limiting ourselves just to domestic capital.”

Charteris said it could be hard to find money to re-invest in farms locally, and relying only on domestic capital would see growth opportunities missed.

“New Zealand, unfortunately, just has a really small pool of domestic capital.

“As you can see with the latest GDP figures in New Zealand, we’re not really going anywhere at the moment. But the rural sector is humming.

“The scale of the opportunity for rural New Zealand is so great that we need to find ways of working with the right kind of offshore capital to nail these sorts of opportunities.”

Charteris said Craigmore was set up to attract “better equity capital” into the country to harness opportunities, create jobs locally and boost regional economies.

Craigmore managed more than 38,000ha of farmland in horticulture, dairy farms and forestry across Aotearoa.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Trust Board was a registered charity to provide religious services across dozens of sites scattered throughout New Zealand.

Charity register documents showed the church made a surplus of $23.3 million in the year to December 31 last year, and owned $517.4m in property, plants and equipment and $10m in investment property.

Stats NZ census data showed more than 54,000 people identified as members of the church in 2023.

-RNZ