Impact Ag’s Bert Glover on a mission to cut carbon on the cattle ranch

Cows convert ordinary grass into different foods, but the conversion process results in up to 12 per cent energy loss through methane-filled gassy burp. Picture: AAP

Armidale-based Impact Ag’s Bert Glover flew out of Australia this week headed to Montana on a six-month project to help Rupert Murdoch manage his 340,000 acre cattle ranches to develop carbon credits and test the use of seaweed to reduce methane from cow burps.

The News Corp chair’s riding instructions to Glover were simple: “He wanted the ranch to be the most profitable in the US and it is being done by using the latest Australian environmental management techniques.”

As Glover started his tenure underlining the strength of the Australian carbon club, Energy Minister Chris Bowen on Friday outlined his plans to review the local carbon market ahead of the promised revamp of the safeguards system, to help guide Australia to achieve its emissions targets.

Bowen was speaking at the Carbon Market Institute’s symposium in Melbourne.

Murdoch told the US Land Report magazine: “We feel privileged to become guardians of this pristine corner of Montana and will do all possible to preserve its fauna and flora.”

He sealed the deal at a lunch last year in Wichita, Kansas, with Charles Koch, representing the Koch family, which had owned the Beaverhead ranch near Yellowstone National Park for the past 70 years.

Glover was on the due diligence team looking at the property, which spans more than 80km from north to south and reportedly cost about $290m.

Glover’s business is part-owned by Murdoch’s son-in-law Alasdair and helped manage his Macdoch Group properties, which featured in the $1m landmark soil carbon credit sales to Microsoft last year.

Agriprove’s Mathew Warnken told The Weekend Australian: “Australia is a world leader in soil carbon with 80 per cent of the known projects managed in Australia. The key is first to measure the baselines, then through better management practices increase the carbon content.”

Glover’s Impact Ag is a specialist asset manager that works on properties with the resident farmers. Glover said: “Managing natural capital as a climate solution is in its infancy. We have been able to pilot projects with our investor partners in Australia with promising results.

“To be able to take this profitable approach to a larger scale in such a pristine special environment of the US is a great step forward in combining quality agricultural practices and food production with land stewardship for all our futures.”

The ranch’s asparagopsis project is with the University of California, Davis campus, a world first as an open-range grass-fed trial using seaweed produced by Hawaiian-based Blue Ocean Barns.

It starts in September.

Impact Ag’s Bert Glover. Illustration: Sturt Krygsman

Cows convert ordinary grass into different foods, but the conversion process results in up to 12 per cent energy loss through methane-filled gassy burps.

The nutritional waste from burps contributes about 2 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year, more than 4 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions globally.

The seaweed is a natural digestive aid that helps cows derive more nutritional value, especially energy, from their feed, and burp less. The cows get more energy and the planet less carbon.

The Murdoch properties in Montana are capable of carrying up to 15,000 head of cattle and the trick is to group them in large numbers of between 1500 and 2000 in a mob on say 8ha at a time, then move them every two days.

This gives the land time to recover both below and above ground.

Glover said: “The cattle are moved up to daily in intense rotational grazing settings, with paddocks rested between 30 and 120 days through the spring, summer and autumn, the idea being to replicate the historical grazing pattern of the native bison.

“During winter, high country is completely destocked due to snow cover and a portion (of the herd) continue being intensively grazed on reserved pasture and a portion is fed fodder.

“The soil carbon project is based on the US Verra-approved method with soil mapping and analysis undertaken by another Armidale-based company, FarmLab.

“Discussions to sell the carbon credits have started with potential buyers which include an international premium apparel business, a large global logistics company and premium beef retailers.

“The pasture crops include ­lucerne, which is grown and bailed in summer to be fed to cattle during winter months.”

For Glover, the aim is to have the ranches working to standard by the year’s end and in the process he will have achieved the triple benefits of nurturing the land, have better fed cattle and add value through carbon credits.

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Carsales revs up

Nervous equity markets aside, Carsales boss Cameron McIntyre has stuck to the winning formula that has seen the company grow from $850m on listing 15 years ago to $5.2bn today.

This week’s addition of 100 per cent of Trader Interactive to his empire means more than half his revenue and earnings are derived offshore.

This compares with 11 per cent of revenues in the 2014 financial year and 5 per cent of earnings.

The $1.2bn equity raising at 23.4 times trailing earnings means the last 51 per cent was cheaper than the first 49 per cent at 26 times earnings, and the market is gradually absorbing the offer with the stock trading at $18.65, above the $17.50-a-share issue price but below the theoretical exercise price of $20.18.

The stock was trading at 16.5 times forecast earnings ahead of the issue.

With 68 million shares issued in the institutional offer or a hefty 24 per cent increase in shares on issue, it was a big call in a volatile market.

Carsales has established a global position in digital marketing just as Covid now demands all companies become digital.

Carsales chief executive Cameron McIntyre. Picture: Stuart McEvoy

The trick, McIntyre says, is to ensure consumers are engaged, have an exceptional experience and the transaction is as seamless as possible.

The Trader Interactive acquisition continued the well-worn path of buying a minority stake in a vehicle and then, once it has taken a good look, buying the rest.

“It gives us a chance to understand management, see whether there is a strategic and cultural fit,” McIntyre says.

The Australian car market is a relative minnow at 20 million vehicles and one million vehicles sold each year, so offshore expansion was a given.

The Trader Interactive deal also continues to extend the business away from cars into boats, RVs and other off-road vehicles, so now its cars, bikes, boats and campervans.

The offshore journey began almost as soon as Carsales listed, with Korean SK Holdings approaching it to help with its Encar used car trading platform.

The trick, McIntyre says, about the six countries in his realm was to “think about every market differently, inject the relevant intellectual property into the market, help change the business model and think of new opportunities”.

McIntyre was hired as CFO by former boss Greg Roebuck from the then Telstra advertising business Sensis 15 years ago and, while Roebuck left the company five years ago, the two are still close friends and catch up for coffee every couple of weeks.

Roebuck gave him three tips: be an authentic leader, humble and own the business.

“We all own the business, which means every dollar is treated as our own,” McIntyre says.

The change for McIntyre was to be in a fast-growing business at the start of its life.

The company now employs 2000 people, of which about 700 are in Australia, with 400 in the Melbourne head office aiming for a team-first culture.