Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce says Australia has enough capital to invest in agriculture and does not need to ease foreign investment rules.
Mr Joyce has called on superannuation funds to use some of their $2 trillion to invest in farms and boost exports to Asia.
He said not one of the major funds had more than one per cent of their portfolio invested in agriculture.
"Let's not say we don't have access to capital - we do," Mr Joyce told the National Press Club in Canberra on Wednesday.
"We are not asking for much - to invest in one of the fastest-growing industries in Australia, with record prices."
He said the industry had witnessed massive investment in recent years, especially in irrigated farming.
The agriculture minister said he understood the interest from investors who were "lined up and ready to pay their price" for beef cattle properties and grain farms.
"We have a protein deficit in the world ... and one of the greatest venues for the production of that protein is here, our nation," he said.
"If it walks, if it isn't human, somebody around the world wants to eat it."
The Nationals were proud of reducing the foreign investment review test threshold from $252 million to $15 million and keeping the threshold for state-owned enterprises to zero.
"It is not politically incorrect, nor xenophobic, nor myopic to have proper control of who owns what in your nation," Mr Joyce said.
Asked whether the Nationals would ask a re-elected Turnbull government for even tighter controls on foreign investment, Mr Joyce said: "I'm not suggesting changes beyond where we are."
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