Who owns Australia’s farms 2021: Top 10 by size

Gina Rinehart controls the most Aussie farmland, with 10 million-plus hectares. Find out who else has the largest holdings.

Gina Rinehart has almost 2 million hectares of farmland for sale, but that is less than a fifth of the 10 million-plus hectares she has amassed over the past decade.

Australia’s 10-biggest landholders:

1. GINA RINEHART

10 MILLION HECTARES

Mining magnate Gina Rinehart appears in no danger of losing her title of Australia’s biggest landholder any time soon – despite listing almost two million hectares of land for sale in recent months.

Rinehart – who has amassed more than 10 million hectares of land over the past decade – last month put seven Northern Territory and West Australian cattle stations, and one feedlot, on the market. The 1.8 million-hectare offering, which experts say could yield as much as $300 million, accounts for almost 20 per cent of the country owned by Rinehart through her own Hancock Agriculture business and pastoral giant S Kidman, of which she is majority shareholder.

2. AUSTRALIAN AGRICULTURAL COMPANY

6.4 MILLION HECTARES

Size matters for the Australian Agricultural Company. The ASX-listed pastoral organisation has put together a balance of properties, feedlots and farms spread over about 6.4 million hectares of Queensland and the Northern Territory. The properties are home to some 400,000 cattle.

At 1.22 million hectares, the iconic Brunette Downs Station north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory is the company’s largest holding. In 2019, AACo took on a 10-year lease of the 17,500-hectare Rewan property at Rolleston in Queensland, from the Rural Funds Group.

3. JUMBUCK PASTORAL COMPANY

6.15 MILLION HECTARES

Owned by the MacLachlan family, Jumbuck Pastoral Company is one of Australia’s largest sheep and cattle producers, with properties in NSW, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. This year it increased its holdings to more than six million hectares with its purchase, in partnership, of the iconic 1.25 million-hectare Wave Hill Station in the Northern Territory for more than $100 million. Other properties include the 1.01 million-hectare Rawlinna Station at Rawlinna in Western Australia.

4. NORTH AUSTRALIAN PASTORAL COMPANY

6.1 MILLION HECTARES

With a history dating back almost 145 years, the North Australian Pastoral Company has proved a stayer in the nation’s agriculture industry.

NAPCO runs about 200,000 cattle across six million hectares of Queensland and the Northern Territory. The company is majority owned by the Queensland Investment Corporation, which paid $400 million for a 79 per cent stake in 2016, with the Foster family from Tasmania the minor shareholders. Its biggest property is the 1.64 million-hectare Alexandria Station at Camooweal in Queensland.

5. CROWN POINT PASTORAL

5 MILLION HECTARES-PLUS

Run by northern cattle producers Viv Oldfield and Donny Costello, Crown Point Pastoral Company is spread across more than five million hectares of South Australia and the Northern Territory. Its stable includes the 1.65 million-hectare Clifton Hills Station on the South Australian Birdsville Track and the 1.09 million-hectare Andado, Horseshoe Bend and New Crown aggregation near Alice Springs.

6. MACQUARIE AGRICULTURE

4.7 MILLION HECTARES

Macquarie Agriculture’s grip on Australian farmland now totals almost 4.7 million hectares through three agriculture-specific funds.

Paraway Pastoral Company, which it founded in 2007, is the biggest with 28 aggregations across NSW, Queensland and Victoria totalling 4.47 million hectares while its Lawson Grains business, which is on the market for about $600 million, comprises 10 aggregations in Western Australia and NSW totalling 91,500 hectares of cropping country.

Its most recent fund, Viridis Ag, has a portfolio of 11 aggregations in Western Australia, NSW and South Australia totalling 104,900 hectares. In addition, Macquarie also owns a 49 per cent stake in Australia’s biggest cotton farm – Cubbie Station at Dirranbandi – for which it paid $200 million in 2019.

7. WILLIAMS CATTLE COMPANY

4.65 MILLION HECTARES

Owned by several members and generations of the Williams family, the Williams Cattle Company consists of seven pastoral properties in the far north of South Australia, as well as grazing and cropping country in the Flinders Ranges.

The portfolio encompasses 4.65 million hectares, which can run about 36,500 cattle. Properties include the 1.57 million-hectare Anna Creek Station – considered the world’s largest cattle property – which it purchased from pastoral icon S Kidman and Co in 2016.

8. MDH PTY LTD

3.36 MILLION HECTARES

MDH Pty Ltd is one of Australia’s biggest family owned and operated pastoral companies – and has been since 1827.

MDH runs 175,000 cattle across 14 properties totalling more than 3.3 million hectares, spread from Cape York Peninsula to Queensland’s Darling Downs, to supply the company’s four beef brands. Properties include Brightlands Station at Cloncurry, which it has owned since 1946, Iffley Station at Normanton and Verdun Valley at Boulia.

9. CONSOLIDATED PASTORAL COMPANY

3.2 MILLION HECTARES

After selling off about $350 million worth of assets in the preceding two years, the Consolidated Pastoral Company legacy was saved last year when British investor Guy Hands paid $500 million for its remaining 3.2 million hectares. The slimmed-down Consolidated Pastoral is spread over nine pastoral leases in the Northern Territory, Queensland and Western Australia running about 300,000 cattle. It also owns a 92 per cent stake in a feedlot business in Indonesia.

10. BROOK FAMILY

3 MILLION HECTARES-PLUS

Organic beef pioneers David and Nell Brook, and their family, run more than three million hectares of organic grassland country in the Channel Country of southern Queensland and South Australia.

Founders of the OBE Organic company, the Brooks also owned the world-famous Birdsville Hotel up until January last year when they sold it for about $6 million.

The Brook station country includes the 870,000-hectare Adria Downs at Birdsville as well as the Alton Downs, Cordillo Downs and Kamaran Downs properties and Murnpeowie Station near Marree.

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