Australia’s most influential people in the cropping industry
The Weekly Times has named the top 20 most influential people in Australian cropping. See the full list.
As Australian grain growers come to the end of a record-breaking harvest, The Weekly Times looks at some of the “kings and queens” of the Australian cropping industry and what makes them so influential.
This list of 21 as chosen by us, includes both well-known faces and some of the quiet achievers of the industry — from heads of multimillion-dollar companies to TikTok stars, business innovators and community builders.
Brett Hosking
Fifth-generation farmer Brett Hosking has been chairman of Grain Growers Ltd since 2018.
Mr Hosking, who has also served as Victorian Farmers Federation grains group president and federation vice president, has used his position at Grain Growers to develop sustainability targets for the grains sector and advocate for more support for farms in the wake of the NSW floods.
Marc Drouin
Marc Drouin heads the Canadian Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSP Investments) global natural resources team.
PSP Investments made its first farmland foray into Australia in 2014, and now has a portfolio of joint venture pastoral, broadacre cropping, orchard, grain storage, water and agricultural processing assets estimated to be worth more than $4b.
In recent years the company has invested up to $3b a year expanding its global farming footprint – more than half of which has gone into Australasian operations.
In 2021, through its Australian Food and Fibre joint venture, it was estimated to have paid about $500m for the Auscott Limited cotton farming, processing and marketing business in NSW.
In 2020 it paid $854m for the ASX-listed Webster Limited business, whose assets included a significant cropping portfolio.
PSP is also the key financial backer of Daybreak Cropping, who operates seven aggregations in NSW, Victoria and Western Australia covering more than 75,000ha. It also owns and operated approximately 45,000ha of cropping land through its BFB joint venture in Temora, NSW.
Peter Vallance
Peter Vallance, 30, became the unlikely face of Australian agriculture to tens of millions of curious young people when he started a TikTok account.
Mr Vallance, who goes by MalleeBoy3490 on TikTok, works on his family’s cropping property at Ouyen in Victoria’s Mallee region.
He started the account as a way to create and save memories of his old cattle dog Spud.
His account, which now also features regular videos with Patrick the alpaca and Spud’s sister Pip, took off.
He has now accrued 12.3 million likes and more than 700,000 followers on the platform.
“To have those young people come and go ‘I really like look of your life, how do I get to do that?’ has been amazing,” he told The Weekly Times in May.
“The cross section of people I talk to is unbelievable.”
Ashley Fraser
Rutherglen farmer Ashley Fraser is director and grains council president of the Victorian Farmers Federation.
He was elected to the position unopposed in 2017, and has used his role to campaign for farmers on a range of issues including their right to repair their own farm machinery.
John Ferrier
Mixed grain farmer John Ferrier is chair and a founding member of the Birchip Cropping Group, a not-for-profit agricultural research and extension organisation in Victoria’s Mallee Region.
Mr Ferrier has been farming for nearly 50 years. Together with his wife, Robyn, he farms 5000ha of wheat, barley, canola, lentils, field peas and sheep north of Birchip.
During his time at BCG, John has helped to drive research into farming methods that are both environmentally sustainable and profitable. He is also a passionate advocate for farm safety.
Alongside his BCG role, John is an active member in Birchip Landcare, his local silo growers group and Birchip Community Forum.
Barry Large
Western Australian grain grower Barry Large was elected chairman of Grain Producers Australia in September this year.
Mr Large, who farms 6500 hectares of grain crops and runs 9000 sheep at Miling in WA’s northern wheatbelt, had a founding role in the establishment of GPA in 2010.
He has been GPA deputy chair since 2013 and is also chair of GPA’s Biosecurity Committee, a group with a crucial role in helping government and industry to manage national biosecurity issues for Australian grain producers.
At the time of his appointment he told The Weekly Times the biggest challenges for the industry were maintaining profits to growers and the establishment of Grains Australia.
Xavier Martin
Northern NSW mixed grain farmer Xavier Martin operates a wheat, canola and sorghum farm at Mullaley, and is the current NSW Farmers vice president.
He has used his platform this year to advocate for more support for growers as they battled NSW’s mouse plague.
He has also called for more scrutiny of foreign investors and the tax advantages they hold over local farmers.
Andrew Weidemann
Mixed grain farmer Andrew Weidemann is the Grain Producers Australia southern region director and former GPA president.
In an interview this year, Mr Weidemann told The Weekly Times his greatest achievement in his eight years at the helm of GPA was bringing the grain industry together.
“We have got all the state farming organisations sitting around the table,” he said.
His other big achievement was developing the database of levy payers of the Grains Research and Development Corporation, he said.
“It was important that GRDC recognise where their income comes from and that researchers understand that growers are funding their work.”
Rebecca Reardon
Farmer Rebecca Reardon is the current treasurer of NSW Farmers. She has been actively involved with the organisation for more than six years, with roles as chair of the Grains Committee and on the executive council.
She runs a mixed farming business in Moree, NSW, together with her husband, and is also on the board of Grains Australia Ltd.
Mrs Reardon has over 25 years’ experience in leadership positions for private and public agribusiness companies. She has previously served on the Grain Trade Australia board, Direct Fertilisers Vic board, Wheat Industry Advisory Taskforce and the Grain Producers Australia policy group.
Justin Everitt
Brocklesby grain grower Justin Everitt is the current NSW Farmers grains group president.
He has used his role to campaign for more support for growers in NSW in the wake of recent floods, while navigating a difficult harvest for his own crops.
David McKeon
David McKeon is the current chief executive of GrainGrowers Ltd and has been part of the organisation since 2015.
Before working for Grain Growers, Mr McKeon held senior positions in the National Farmers’ Federation and worked in the Department of Agriculture.
In his role as chief executive, Mr McKeon has helped the organisation investigate the opportunities for grain growers to participate in growing carbon markets.
Robert Spurway
In March 2020, Robert Spurway became the fifth chief executive of 100-plus-year-old grains giant GrainCorp.
Starting his job as the coronavirus pandemic first began to impact Australia, he has managed to guide the company through two bumper harvests despite border closures, workforce interruptions and widespread flooding in NSW.
Under his leadership, GrainCorp has returned impressive profits.
In the week before the Australian Securities Exchange closed for the year on December 24, GrainCorp reached its highest share price since the 2020 share market crash of $7.90.
With a closing price of $7.85, the grain company’s market capitalisation is nearly $1.8 billion.
Coulton family
Southeast Queensland’s Coulton family runs Morella Agriculture, a massive 809,371ha spread of properties from Thargomindah to Goondiwindi, Bungunya and Toobeah in Queensland as well as from Boggabilla to Ebor in northern NSW.
The family were pioneers of the cotton industry in southern Queensland’s MacIntyre Valley.
David and Kim Coulton and their three sons, Andrew, Thomas and Sam now farm about 5500ha of irrigated cotton and 7000-8000ha of cereal crops, as well as running Angus breeding cows, and operating a 2000-head feedlot.
The family have continued to expand while keeping a close eye on their water consumption, and are now putting in place a solid succession plan.
Cullen Gunn
Cullen Gunn is chief executive and a founding director of Kilter Rural, the largest grower of irrigated, broadacre organic crops in Australia. Mr Gunn has been overseeing the company’s investment portfolios since 2006.
Founded in 2004, the Victorian-based company defines itself as a “specialist manager, dedicated to investment in Australian real assets of farmland, water and ecosystem services”.
It manages 12,000ha of farmland, growing irrigated cotton, organic wheat, organic barley, organic soy beans, lucerne hay, as well as a mix of fruit and vegetable crops.
The company has anchored its business model in higher-value organic crops and is aiming for steady growth and long-term consistent returns to investors, as well as an environmental and social boost to the Murray River communities where it is based.
Oscar Pearse
Oscar Pearse is a sixth-generation grain and beef producer from the Moree region and a graduate of the Grain Growers’ Australian Grain Leaders Program.
Mr Pearse is an experienced ag-vocate passionate about marketing and effective communication, particularly the grains sector.
He has garnered more than 9000 followers on Twitter and regularly tweets about agricultural policy, climate change, and most-recently, the fallout from widespread flooding and heavy rain in northern NSW.
He’s not afraid of taking a stance on issues he is passionate about.
“When you are a farmer, and you are on social media, you feel like you are under siege,” he told The Weekly Times in 2019.
But he hasn’t given up, continuing to share the challenges and delights of farming with his growing follower-base.
Renee Anderson
Nuffield scholar and farmer Renee Anderson owns and works on her family’s irrigation cropping farms in Central Queensland growing cotton, chick peas, mung beans, popcorn and wheat.
Ms Anderson has used her growing Twitter following of more than 7000 to strengthen the online #AgChat community and discuss topics she is passionate about, including beneficial insects, soil and plant health.
She has used her role a Cotton Australia representative to combat misinformation about genetically modified crops and support research trials into reducing water and insecticide use.
Phillipa Lawson
Phillipa Lawson and her husband, Skeet, run her family’s 1500-hectare wheat, barley and lentil operation at Pinnaroo, in the South Australia Mallee near the Victoria border.
Inspired by a desire to improve the diet of her two young daughters, Mrs Lawson began producing red lentil flour, a great source of protein that can be mixed in to a range of dishes.
After taking part in an intense start-up accelerator program called Farmers2Founders in 2020, she launched a new brand – The Pinnaroo Farmer – the same year.
She now sells red lentil flour directly to customers through an online shop, her local Pinnaroo bakery and through a wholefoods store in Adelaide.
Evan Siddall
Evan Siddall is president and chief executive of Alberta Investment Management Co, a Canadian investment fund that bought huge chunks of Australian cropping land this year.
AIMCo paid $600 million for Macquarie Agriculture’s Lawson Grains business in September.
The portfolio comprises 105,000 hectares of cropping land in NSW and Western Australia.
The Weekly Times understands the purchase was Alberta Investment Management Corporation’s first direct investment in agriculture in Australia.
Sam Heagney
Sam Heagney is farm manager on his wife Annette’s family property at Mungindi on the NSW/Queensland border.
The family grows dryland and irrigated wheat, barley, chick peas, cotton and sorghum and run a small cattle grazing enterprise.
Mr Heagney is a passionate ag-vocate, working to educate consumers about where their food comes from via his growing Twitter following of more than 7000.
Ben Macnamara
Ben Macnamara was appointed chief executive of CBH Group, Australia’s biggest co-operative, in December 2021.
CBH Group is coming to the end of its biggest ever grain harvest this season with more than 20 million tonnes delivered to receival sites across the state as of last week.
Mr Macnamara is the 11th head of the group, replacing former boss Jimmy Wilson. He came to the role from the group’s operations division, where he led the network through a period of significant investment and planning for this year’s crop.
He said his focus in the role will be on “our people and relationships with our growers, customers and partners, network investment and keeping pace with growers and customer needs and enhancements to our core systems”.
Ron Storey
Ron Storey was appointed chairman and managing director of the Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre in 2020.
In 2021 AEGIC has been working hard to diversify Australia’s barley export markets in an attempt to replace the quantity of barley imported by China before the country imposed heavy tariffs on Australia.
Most recently it identified Latin America, in particular Ecuador, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico and Peru as key potential export markets.
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