The 22 most influential people in Australian agriculture in 2022
New movers and shakers have made it on to The Weekly Times’ annual list of Australian agriculture’s most powerful players.
Australian agriculture has had a record-breaking year.
Bumper harvests and soaring commodity prices have sent the nation’s annual production value soaring to $81 billion.
The achievement took an army of farmers, processors, supply chain gurus, exporters, retailers and policy makers.
There are a few powerful playmakers, however, who have pulled the chain, paving the way for Australian farming’s golden run.
Some sit in international trade towers; others in war rooms.
And some keep our farms going day-to-day.
These are Australian ag’s top 22 power players of 2022, chosen by AgJournal
for their influence on agriculture, for how their actions affect the entire industry, and for their ability to make big decisions.
Since our inaugural list was released last year, the world has changed dramatically.
War in Ukraine has rolled into a long-running conflict with huge ramifications.
Biosecurity threats have lapped at Australia’s shores for months, becoming more threatening by the day. Global inflation is putting pressure on farmers, whose cost of production is spiralling, and consumers, who are feeling the cost-of-living pinch.
Some new chiefs have made this year’s list, and others have slipped off the chart.
Voters also shuffled the cards when they ushered in a new federal government in May.
Russian president Vladimir Putin is a new entrant this year. His hostile bombs have disrupted life as all Ukrainians knew it, but also up-ended the worldwide flow of fertilisers and grains.
Putin’s war has pushed commodity and input prices into the stratosphere, rocking everyone from grain growers to beef producers.
Unpredictable Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s trade wars and stranglehold on supply chain links has also had massive influence on Aussie growers over the past 12 months. Jinping’s control of major ports and China’s continued trade hostility has forced growers to make some difficult decisions.
They are just a few of Australian ag’s 22 most influential people of 2022, listed here alphabetically.
ANDREW AND NICOLA FORREST, MINING AND BEEF BILLIONAIRES
Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest and wife Nicola head an agricultural empire that is a true behemoth. Harvest Road, which is part of the Forrests’ Tattarang group, is one of the nation’s most diverse agriculture companies, owning more than three million hectares, dozens of cattle stations, a feedlot and export-accredited abattoir, making it the biggest beef producer in Western Australia. It also has interests in aquaculture and horticulture.
In December, Harvest Road snapped up 7975-hectare New Norcia Farm in Western Australia’s wheatbelt, valued at about $40 million, to add potential to the company’s Koojan Downs feedlot. In February, it followed with the purchase of 634,000-hectare Balfour Downs pastoral station, for reportedly more than $32 million. And in March it bought 604,000-hectare Springvale in the Kimberley.
Tattarang has also been throwing money at agribusiness interests left, right and centre. It now holds a 11.5 per cent share in NSW dairy and food business Bega, and a 17.4 per cent stake in Australian beef giant AACo.
ANTHONY ALBANESE, PRIME MINISTER
It had been almost a decade of Coalition rule before a Labor government assumed office in June, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at its helm. As the votes came in on election night in May, the agricultural community drew breath as it pondered the new ruling party’s commitment to phase out live exports, deliver 450 gigalitres of water to the environment and strip back the nation’s fuel tax credits scheme.
In the Senate, Albanese’s government is beholden to the vote of the Greens and Independent David Pocock to push through legislation. The PM’s negotiating skills will have consequences for the agriculture industry, particularly on his newly legislated pathway to net zero by 2050.
The Prime Minister would be well aware that the Gillard government’s suspension of live exports to Indonesia in 2011 cost farmers dearly. But from the outset Albanese has promised a “kinder”, more respectful government. Whether this sentiment extends to farmers will soon be revealed.
BRENT EASTWOOD, JBS AUSTRALIA CHIEF EXECUTIVE
From fish to Four Corners, there has been plenty for Brett Eastwood to deal with in his role as the king pin of Australia’s leading meat and food processor.
Eastwood holds the reins to JBS Australia, a business that dominates the nation’s protein supply. With a combined inventory of six feedlots, 10 processing facilities and five value-adding facilities, it has extraordinary coverage and control over beef and lamb prices.
That was seen clearly when the JBS Australia computer system was hacked last year, driving fear into livestock markets as they tried to assess the fallout.
This year, labour shortages caused by Covid have thrown the company’s 11,500-strong workforce into disarray, upsetting JBS Australia’s ability to keep its abattoirs running at full steam.
Eastwood went as far as to say worker shortages in general were costing Australia billions of dollars in lost revenue.
In April, unwanted attention was focused on the media-shy business. ABC’s Four Corners expose on the Australian arm of JBS contained allegations of dodgy business deals, poor worker treatment and bribes.
It was a sour point for Eastwood, who had spearheaded recent acquisitions including the purchase of pork processor Rivalea Australia last year and then Huon salmon in Tasmania.
BARRY IRVIN, BEGA EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AND RENE DEDONCKER, FONTERRA MANAGING DIRECTOR
In a scramble to nail down milk supply, Australia’s dairy processors locked in a bidding war in June, delighting the nation’s farmers after years of being price takers.
Leading the bidding frenzy were Fonterra Australia managing director Rene Dedoncker and Bega Cheese executive director Barry Irvin.
While smaller players made their mark in the lead up to the July 1 mandatory dairy code of conduct deadline, it is Australia’s big three processors, including Fonterra, Bega and Saputo, that really have driven prices skyward.
In June, Dedoncker said robust opening prices helped farmers plan into next year.
“Since closing out last season and heading into the new year, we’ve seen a 24 per cent uplift in the average farmgate milk price,” he said. “These record prices are good news for farmers as they tackle higher input costs including feed, power and fertiliser.”
Irvin said the market fundamentals for dairy remain stable, allowing for the strong farmgate figures.
With the dust now settled and contracts signed, Dedoncker and Irvin will be hoping Australia’s demand for dairy remains buoyant despite inflationary pressures.
DON FARRELL, TRADE MINISTER
When newly minted Trade Minister Don Farrell needs inspiration to deal with the opportunities for Australian primary producers on a competitive global scale, he need not go far. A visit to the backyard will suffice.
It’s because the Murray Bridge-born South Australian Senator, who took on the lucrative trade portfolio after Labor’s May federal election win, also considers himself a farmer. He operates Farrell Wines at Sevenhill, in South Australia’s Clare Valley, and claims to “know first-hand the daily challenges faced by local growers and primary producers”.
In early September the vineyard will form a backdrop of a meeting between Farrell and UK International Trade Secretary Anne-Marie Trevelyn as he seeks to improve diplomatic relations with Australia’s trading partners. He has also extended an olive branch to China, and met with European leaders at World Trade Organisation talks in Geneva in June and US officials in Washington DC last month.
Farrell has three key free-trade agreements in his in-tray: one with the European Union, which he wants complete by mid-next year (after talks stalled under the previous government when Australia famously walked away from a submarine deal with France), as well as others with the UK and India.
Also high on Farrell’s agenda is how to deal with China, who have slapped trade bans on Australian beef and wine in recent years, particularly with the threat of a looming conflict between China and Taiwan.
FIONA SIMSON, NATIONAL FARMERS’ FEDERATION PRESIDENT
The president of the farming industry’s peak body may call NSW’s Liverpool Plains home but chances are she hasn’t been there much this year.
In her role as president of the National Farmers’ Federation, Fiona has been addressing industry conferences one day and jumping on a plane the next, including to Indonesia last month with Agriculture Minister Murray Watt. But that’s exactly what has been required in a hectic year for agriculture.
In the lead up to the federal election in mid-May, Simson was in full lobbying mode. The NFF wanted both parties to address climate adaptation and acknowledge that farmers needed help to find ways to work within the ever-changing environment.
She drew attention to the plan for carbon farming to offset industrial emissions, honing in on the drawbacks of locking up and leaving land, which would result in people leaving rural communities. Simson also broke the mould by highlighting the best ideas in this area come from independent MP Helen Haines, from Indi.
More recently, Simson has taken the lead on foot and mouth disease, pressuring the federal government for more action on biosecurity while standing with them to form a united front.
JOHN SAID, FRESH PRODUCE ALLIANCE CHAIRMAN
He might hail from “the salad bowl of Australia”, but John Said didn’t start his career in the vegetable trade. The founder and chief executive of fresh vegetable wholesaler Fresh Select was an aircraft maintenance engineer before switching trades.
Today, he heads Australia’s largest lettuce and brassica farming businesses, with headquarters in Victoria’s Werribee South and protected cropping sites across Australia.
His influence in the sector is not confined to his business – one of Coles’ largest vegetable suppliers – but his time on industry committees.
As chairman of the Produce Marketing Association Australia and New Zealand, the local arm of the global fresh produce trading association, he is charged with helping businesses navigate supply chain issues, food tampering and even global pandemics.
Earlier this year, Said was also elected managing director of the Australian Fresh Produce Alliance.
The relatively new lobby group has made its presence known since its formation three years ago. It has campaigned loudly for a solution to farmers’ critical labour shortage, and was integral in the former Coalition government’s development of an Agriculture Visa.
LIZ O’LEARY, MACQUARIE AG BOSS
There’s two sides to Liz O’Leary. First the corporate executive, immaculately dressed in a power-suit stamping her authority on some of the most powerful boardrooms in the nation. Then there’s the country girl, easily at home out in the paddocks.
During a stellar career as head of Macquarie Bank’s agricultural investment arm – one of the biggest investors in Australian farming assets – O’Leary has proved she can walk the walk.
She controls a huge portfolio of cropping and livestock farms spread across millions of hectares and valued north of $2.6 billion.
O’Leary’s signature sits at the bottom of three huge deals in the past 14 months. Last June Macquarie finalised a $357.53 million takeover of major citrus and berry grower Vitalharvest and three months later pocketed $600 million for the 103,000-hectare Lawson Grains business in NSW and Western Australia, which was snapped up by Canada’s Alberta Investment Management Corporation. In recent months, it secured ownership of Queensland cotton powerhouse Cubbie Station by buying Chinese Shandong Ruyi’s 51 per cent share. According to experts, the Cubbie Station business is worth more than $500 million.
MARC DROUIN, PSP INVESTMENTS
Marc Drouin is Australian ag’s $5 billion man.
The head of Canadian PSP Investments’ natural resources arm, Drouin oversees a $12.5 billion portfolio of farmland and timber globally – including about $5 billion worth of agricultural assets and more than 2.3 million hectares in Australia. PSP has rocketed to the top of the pops in terms of Australian farm ownership during the past decade, with its investments changing the landscape of foreign ownership in this country. It is also the biggest holder of water entitlements in the Murray Darling Basin.
Its two biggest deals are also the two biggest in Australian agriculture history, with both closely linked to water and irrigated farming. In 2018 it paid $860 million for 12,000 hectares of almond orchards, and 90,000ML of high-security water, at Robinvale in northern Victoria in 2019 shortly after negotiating a $854 billion takeover of ASX-listed Webster Limited and its 340,000 hectares and 153,000ML of water.
In the past 16 months, it splashed out $600 million for the 22,000-hectare Auscott cotton business in NSW. Through its Hewitt Cattle Australia joint venture, it paid $100 million for the 1.1 million-hectare Narwietooma, Glen Helen, Derwent and Napperby stations in the Northern Territory, $40 million-plus for Tubbo Station near Narrandera in NSW and $22 million for the nearby Brewarrana Station.
MARK ALLISON, ELDERS MANAGING DIRECTOR
Elders managing director Mark Allison appears for the second time on this list for good reason. As head of the $1.8 billion agribusiness and pastoral company that provides services from real estate and clearing sales to water trading and farm insurance, he shapes the fortunes of thousands of Australian farmers.
In its most recent update to investors in May, the Australian Securities Exchange-listed company’s sales were up 38 per cent to $1.51 billion, while net profit after tax was up 34 per cent to $91.2 million.
From a sugar cane and beef cattle farming family in Far North Queensland, Allison is widely credited with shaping Elders into the success story it is today.
It’s not just the sheer scale of Elders’ reach that makes Allison such an influential player, but his role as president of Agribusiness Australia. The organisation is the voice of the biggest businesses in Australian agriculture who are united by a goal of achieving a $300 billion agribusiness value chain by 2030.
MARK SCHIPP, CHIEF VETERINARY OFFICER OF AUSTRALIA
In any normal year, Dr Mark Schipp’s work as Chief Veterinary Officer of Australia, would mostly be behind the scenes.
That was until foot and mouth disease was discovered just off shore, first in mainland Indonesia in May, then in Bali in June. As the nation’s chief vet, Schipp is the No. 1 adviser to the Australian government, counselling politicians on how to maintain our disease-free status. With FMD and lumpy skin disease both rearing their heads as serious threats to the livestock industry this year, Schipp has called on all his three decades of veterinary experience to steer the disease-threat ship. He has travelled to Indonesia in both April and May to talk to his counterparts about co-operation on animal health and biosecurity, and rallied troops in private veterinary practices to be hyper-vigilant about suspected cases.
As the Australian delegate to the World Organisation for Animal Health, Schipp fully understands the economic and social implications of diseases such as FMD, and while he may slip out of the limelight, his influence on ag won’t ease any time soon.
MURRAY WATT, AGRICULTURE MINISTER
When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced his new ministry in June, the farming community wasn’t expecting little-known Queensland Senator Murray Watt to be handed the reins to ag portfolio.
It has been a baptism of fire for the former solicitor, with floods in Queensland and NSW and major biosecurity threats including an outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Indonesia and varroa mite, the world’s worst honey bee parasite, found in Australia.
Some industry players have said he was too slow to beef-up Australia’s readiness for a potential incursion, while others have praised his introduction of citric acid foot mats at airports and new powers for biosecurity officers.
It will also be his response this year to the sector’s crippling labour shortage that will affect agriculture more broadly. Watt has reaffirmed the government’s commitment to an agreement with Vietnam, which formed part of the Coalition’s agriculture visa. But the much hoped for visa designed to bring workers in from South East Asian nations is all but dead in the water.
PETER AND JANE HUGHES, HUGHES PASTORAL COMPANY
They are one of Australia’s most highly respected cattle power couples with a $600 million Wagyu empire, and this year Peter and Jane, both in their 70s, solidified their position at the top of the beef industry tree.
A force to be reckoned with in northern Australian cattle production, the pair operate Hughes Pastoral Co and Georgina Pastoral Co, which carries about 100,000 cattle across a number of stations in Queensland and the Northern Territory.
In April they expanded their footprint, buying Riveren and Inverway stations in the NT from Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Agriculture company for a reported $100 million. And last year they paid $215 million to secure Miranda Downs station in the Gulf region of Queensland.
This quiet expansion over the past year takes their estimated holdings to about four million hectares across northern Australia and their wealth to an estimated $750 million-plus. Much more than landholders, the visionary couple have carved a unique position in Australian beef, converting their entire herd to purebred Wagyu cattle over five generations. The end result is beautifully marbled meat that commands a premium and sets a high bar for producers across the nation.
DR PHILIP LOWE, RESERVE BANK OF AUSTRALIA GOVERNOR
Over the next 12 months Reserve Bank of Australia governor Dr Philip Lowe has the unenviable task of tackling inflation and ensuring a “soft landing” in Australia’s uncertain economy.
Lowe’s decisions on how to tackle inflation will ultimately affect commodity prices and farmers’ balance sheets through the cost of borrowed money.
This year farmers have faced increased fertiliser, fuel and power costs, but commodity prices have also been at near record levels, offsetting some of the cost pressures.
Farmers need Lowe and the RBA to strike the right balance between stabilising inflation without disproportionately affecting demand through careful cash rate rises. At their August meeting the RBA lifted the cash rate by 50 basis points to a six-year high of 1.85 per cent, with more rises expected this year.
After lifting the cash rate for a fourth consecutive month Lowe said “the path to achieve this balance is a narrow one and clouded in uncertainty”.
STEVEN CAIN AND BRAD BANDUCCI, COLES AND WOOLWORTHS CEOS
Once cast as villains for slashing the price of generic milk to $1 a litre back in 2011, Coles and Woolworths are this year being thanked by some corners of the ag sector for making long-called-for price increases in the dairy cabinet.
Lobbying by dairy industry leaders for years achieved incremental change in 2019 and 2020, but inflation has broken the back of dollar-a-litre milk once and for all, with Coles, led by Steven Cain, the first to hike prices in July.
A one-litre carton of Coles brand milk now costs $1.60, while a two-litre bottle has lifted to $3.10. Woolworths, headed by Brad Banducci, mirrored the price rise the same day.
Ag leaders such as United Dairyfarmers of Victoria vice president Mark Billing hailed the decision, with input costs including electricity, fertiliser and labour eroding profit margins.
Processors were also pleased, with Norco chief executive Michael Hampson welcoming the decision.
Dairy producers will be directly affected by what Cain and Banducci do in the coming year. EastAUSdairy vice chairman Graham Forbes says the ideal outcome is a $2-a-litre milk price, which is “cheaper than Coca-Cola”.
TANYA PLIBERSEK, FEDERAL WATER MINISTER
Minister for the Environment and Water Tanya Plibersek has stepped into a political minefield as she gets to grips with her portfolio – one that controls irrigated farming communities’ ability to feed the nation, and to survive.
Her first task is to navigate what was supposed to be the final two years of the Murray Darling Basin Plan, due to deliver 450 gigalitres of water to the environment in 2024, but expected to fail.
Plibersek has warned nothing is off the table in her push to recover the water, including voluntary water buybacks.
Her first move was to tour the Murray-Darling Basin towns of Mildura and Hay, meeting with river stakeholders.
At the time she said taking on the water portfolio had been “unexpected” and she wanted to be guided in the role by spending “time on the ground listening”.
She now faces the prospect of bringing together irrigators, environment groups and Traditional Owners to deliver a Plan that an independent report acknowledged in July “cannot be achieved”.
THE CONSUMER
Sowing, harvesting, breeding, feeding, processing and transporting food and fibre is just half the job of farming. The second half of the equation is consumption.
If buyers grow tired of smashed avocado on toast, or stop snapping up apples, dairy or well-marbled red meat, not long after farmers start ripping out trees and selling off cattle.
Over the past year, the winegrape and apple and pear industries have been put through this ringer.
Sugar, too, has been losing its sweet taste, with consumption down 5.4 per cent in 2020-21. The decline has been happening for decades, and has caused lacklustre investment in Queensland’s sugar cane heartland, raising questions about the future for producers.
Dairy and meat alternatives, meanwhile, were a huge hit with shoppers in 2020-21, according to Australian Bureau of Statistics data released earlier this year.
With consumption growth of 13.8 per cent following 13.7 per cent the previous year, it seems the “alt-foods” shelf in the supermarket is here to stay. This means opportunities for producers of high-protein plants, such as legumes and nuts, but it hasn’t eaten away at traditional meat and dairy markets either.
Red meat and poultry consumption remained relatively stable compared to previous years, and dairy the same.
As inflation hits supermarket shelves and customers’ hip pockets, however, that may change.
VLADIMIR PUTIN, PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA
When Russian President Vladimir Putin declared a “special military operation” against Ukraine on February 24, he set in place a chain of events that have reshaped global trade and sent prices for grain and agricultural inputs into a period of intense volatility.
The invasion of Ukraine sparked financial sanctions against Russia and brought shipping in the Black Sea to a temporary halt, sending grain and fertiliser prices, which were already high, to record levels.
Prices have since cooled slightly, but analysts warn volatility will continue, as traders respond to developments in the active war zone.
Meanwhile analysts say there are concerns Russia could use its forecast bumper wheat harvest as a political lever in trade negotiations, in the same way it has used reliance on its gas reserves as a bargaining chip.
In May, Putin announced Russia expected to harvest 130 million tonnes of grain, with 50 million tonnes destined for export.
With wheat exports from Ukraine estimated to halve in 2022-23 to 10 million tonnes, Russian wheat will be in high demand. Together, Russian and Ukrainian Black Sea crops made up about 28 per cent of the world’s exported wheat last year.
“Putin is right now using gas, telling the Europeans ’we’ve turned the gas pipeline off, or maybe we’re turning it on, maybe not’. He could do the same with wheat if he wanted,” Rabobank analyst Stefan Vogel says.
THE WORKER
Australian agricultural workers this year won a years-long fight for minimum wage reforms, but the battle for better working conditions on Australian farms isn’t stopping there.
Australian Workers Union national secretary Daniel Walton says the April introduction of a guaranteed minimum wage for horticultural workers has increased wages for piece rate workers from an average of $9 an hour to more than $25 per hour.
Farming groups have complained the change has reduced the productivity of horticultural workers, many of whom were previously paid according to the volume of fruit or vegetables they harvested with no minimum floor price.
But Walton has dismissed this as “misinformation”. Pickers and harvesters could still be incentivised to earn more than the minimum rate, he argues, and the minimum floor price “brings (agricultural employers) up in alignment with practices that operate around the rest of the economy and have done for several decades”.
The next battle the union is gearing up to fight is that of deductions from wages for travel, accommodation, food and other services.
Today, workers have a tight labour market on their side in their fight for better workplace protections. As of June, Australia’s unemployment rate had plummeted to 3.5 per cent – its lowest in 48 years – and job vacancies had swollen to 480,000 across the economy.
XI JINPING, PRESIDENT OF CHINA
If there’s one person in the world with the power to turn Australia’s agriculture industry on its head with a simple flick of a switch, it’s China’s President Xi Jinping.
While it’s fair to say China and Australia have not been on the best of terms in recent years – the former retaliated to the latter’s call for an investigation into the origins of coronavirus in 2020 by banning several beef abattoirs and slapping tariffs on barley and wine – industry fears tensions between China and Taiwan could come at an even greater cost.
Australia has backed Taiwan in the sovereignty dispute, with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese calling for “no unilateral change to the status quo”. Some industry sources fear this stance, coupled with fears foot and mouth disease could enter Australia from the Indonesian resort island of Bali, could give Jinping the impetus to go harder to restrict Aussie imports this year.
China is Australia’s largest export market for agricultural goods, worth $12 billion in 2020-21. Ag exports to China are worth about three times what they were in 2001-02.
Capitalising on the ‘beautiful food bowl’ of South Gippsland
No chemicals. No outside soil. No worries. This is the approach taken by Chippin Estate’s Shane O’Keefe at his bountiful vegetable farm.
High stocking rate paying off at Dryburgh
Ben Whiteley has turned this former run down hobby farm into a showstopping, productive property running 760 Angus cattle at Neerim Junction. See how he did it.