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Farming

This Month

Robert Lervasi MD of SPC.

Food producers taking a hit on power prices in Victoria

Victoria-based food, juice and infant formula maker SPC Global says power price rises are out of whack with other states, and that’s hurting the bottom line.

  • Patrick Durkin
Mineral Banks is being sold for the first time in more than 90 years.

Outback Wagyu powerhouse to test appetite for top-end farms

The Taylors Plains property, which has come to the market with a $75 million guide, will be the first big test of appetite for trophy livestock properties in 2025.

  • Larry Schlesinger

January

AFR JAD Speckle Park cattle. Photo: Amy Dickens, JAD Speckle Park

How Australia became a test bed for the future of farming

Experimental fungi and “robotic bees” are among the agtech innovations being trialled in a country on the front line of climate change.

  • Nic Fildes
The Patoralists and Graziers Association is investigating financial misconduct.

Group representing billionaires reveals financial misconduct

The Pastoralists and Graziers Association has revealed its investigating “serious financial misconduct” within its own walls.

  • Tom Rabe

December 2024

Hamish Barker and Gary Spreckley on their property near Firefly. Gabriel Govinda says he is surrendering the tenement near their property,

Pump and dumper behind NSW mining application wave

Gabriel Govinda denies his companies are spruiking stock they receive for selling exploration licences. Residents and politicians are concerned about the convicted pump-and-dumper’s involvement in mining projects along the NSW north coast.

  • Max Mason
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Fiona Yue is the CEO of Merino & Co, a Perth-based wool company newly listed on the ASX.

Can a looming trade war revive this niche Australian industry?

Firms such as newly listed Merino & Co are positioning themselves between China and Donald Trump, who threatens to impose tariffs on Chinese products.

  • Updated
  • Jessica Sier
Farmland with permanent crops like macadamia trees has fallen sharply in value this year.

Orchard and vineyard values down 15pc as livestock farms rally

Farmland planted with permanent crops such as wine grapes and nuts has fallen 15pc on average over the past 12 months, according to a key index.

  • Larry Schlesinger
Jeremy Clarkson at the farmers’ protest against inheritance tax in central London.

‘Authentic’ Jeremy Clarkson tops polls in disaffected, desperate UK

His shift from Top Gear cars to Diddly Squat cows has so enhanced Clarkson’s everyman appeal that people are asking if a political future beckons.

  • Hans van Leeuwen
Wilkatana Station has been bought by renewable energy boss Andrew Doman and his family.

Trophy farms worth $120m change hands in year-end deals bonanza

Among the five properties sold was the 1900-hectare wool aggregation Avington – and its 16,000 Merino sheep – in Victoria’s Macedon Ranges.

  • Updated
  • Larry Schlesinger
Barley farmer Tony York in Tammin, Western Australia.

Australian farmers caught in Trump’s $16b trade war crosshairs

Barley and other farmers face being squeezed out of the market as the incoming president seeks an agriculture deal with China.

  • Jessica Sier

November 2024

Hort Innovation is trialling the use of microdrones to pollinate plants.

Aussie VC Artesian, horticulture R&D group partner to launch $60m fund

The new fund, dubbed Hort Innovation Venture Fund, will target up to 30 local and international startups for pre-seed or early series A funding.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport
Every few years, we get bankers picking over Australia’s rural services groups. This time it is Elders buying Delta Ag.

Monday’s big deal shows domestic M&A is definitely not dead

For all the bluster we hear from bankers and lawyers about the ACCC, companies are still willing to take on the competition regulator.

  • Anthony Macdonald
A tractor pulls a seeder and plow over a wheat field near Gunnedah, NSW. Elders is the largest seller of farming supplies in the country.

Elders supercharges agribusiness consolidation with $475m Delta buy

One of the country’s largest farm services groups is buying its private equity-backed rival in a deal expected to be scrutinised by the competition regulator.

  • Updated
  • Simon Evans
Donald Trump and J.D. Vance.

Trump will cost farmers money. But they still voted for him

Farmers, migrants and women were not expected to vote for Donald Trump. They explain why they voted against identity politics, lax immigration controls and globalisation.

  • Matthew Cranston
Rawlinna Station is being sold for the first time in over 60 years.

Outback property the size of Sydney once coveted by Twiggy now on sale

Mining giant Fortescue has ditched plans to develop a renewable energy project on Rawlinna Station, which is Australia’s largest sheep station.

  • Larry Schlesinger
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The British Sausage Company 30 varieties of sausage, ham and bacon products from factories in Western Australia and NSW.

CPE Capital snags $200m Perth meat business

CPE is still in talks with sell-side adviser PwC, sources said. However, the deal is expected to be signed “imminently”.

  • Sarah Thompson, Kanika Sood and Emma Rapaport

October 2024

Crower and Fellwood includes a heritage-listed homestead built in 1865.

SA livestock farm with historic homestead fetches $28m

Ian and Louise Johnson have acquired a slice of South Australian farming history after emerging as the buyers of the Crower and Fellwood grazing aggregation.

  • Larry Schlesinger
Flock of sheep in WA.

Farmland buyers are back after sales slump

LAWD’s Danny Thomas says confidence is back and everyone is rushing to get deals done by Christmas – after sales volumes hit new lows in the first half of 2024.

  • Larry Schlesinger
St Aubyns Station spans 2,734ha of productive sheep and cattle country near Walcha.

Italian banking family puts $31m New England cattle farm up for sale

The Trabaldo Togna family, which owns banks in Lugano, Switzerland and Milan, is selling the last of its Australian farms, St Aubyns Station near Walcha in NSW.

  • Larry Schlesinger
goFARM will convert the Dellapool property to higher-yielding crops.

Rich Listers to turn Ferrero nut orchards into olive groves

goFARM, which is half owned by Costa Asset Management, has paid about $60 million for the former hazelnut orchards near Narrandera.

  • Larry Schlesinger

Original URL: https://www.afr.com/topic/farming-hnd