Charles Stewart Western Victoria rural real estate specialist Nick Adamson said there had been “a reasonable amount of enquiry” from graziers north of Warrnambool and the greater Hamilton area for land previously used for dairying.

Mr Adamson said the price differential between grazing dairying land had come closer in recent years with grazing yielding higher returns than dairying.

The general price of $3000-$3500 an acre for grazing land was now close to what had been higher value dairying land, he said.

Mr Adamson said he knew of one dairy farm that had recently been bought by a Hamilton grazier.

Another dairy farm north of Warrnambool had been sold to grazing interests last spring, he said.

However Hamilton-based Kerr & Co rural land sales specialist Robert Claffey said there was still a significant price differential between the price of grazing and dairying land in his area.

Mr Claffey said there had been no significant shift from dairying, which was not a big land use in his area.

While the price of grazing land had risen by about $800 an acre in past 18 months, it would need to rise further to encourage farmers to put land on the market, he said.

Most of the dairying land offered in his area were outpaddocks and too small to interest graziers, Mr Claffey said.

in his of farming enterprises most of the dairying land offered for sale in his area was outpaddocks about 

“There has been some evidence of farm enterprise change but it’s nothing major,” Mr Adamson said.

“It’s trend in the market place,” he said.

“For the first half of the calendar year, it’s been reasonably quiet for motivated sellers.

“But in the last one month to six weeks, there have been a few producers looking to get out,” Mr Adamson said.