Campbell House, Eastern Tiers and Cherry Estate Orchards hit the market

A 1500ha family-owned dairy, beef and cropping property on South Australia’s Narrung Peninsula has hit the market for a premium price.

Three first-class Australian agricultural assets have hit the market where they could field offers worth almost $90 million.

In southeast South Australia, locals have joked that you can see Brad and Karin Fischer’s cow barn from the moon.

That’s a bit far-fetched, of course, but it carries a good measure of admiration for the vision shown in the building’s construction seven years ago and its impact since.

The Fischers’ property, Campbell House, consists of five adjoining titles on South Australia’s Narrung Peninsula, 16km west of Meningie, with the Coorong behind and Lake Albert in front.

The Fischer family is selling its 1500ha dairy, 16km west of Meningie in South Australia.

“My grandparents purchased the property from the government in the late sixties and we bought it 10 or 12 years ago,” Brad said.

“We’ve since made more improvements – mainly the barn, inspired by my three years’ experience milking cows in barns overseas.

“When we built it there weren’t too many others around, but there are plenty now.”

The couple’s 600-cow Friesian herd boasts a five-year milk production figure of 6.4 million litres, with all cows genomically tested.

“We only breed from the best, using sex, semen or beef terminal sires and AI only,” Brad said.

The Fischer’s cow barn for 800-head includes automatic backing gate, two-pond effluent system and flood-wash.

“We run 400 beef breeders, Angus and wagyu, on another property and raise everything on various farms.”

Built in 2012, the 50-unit rotary dairy is fitted with 46,000 litres in vat storage, five silos, cup removers, ID system with auto draft, teat scrubber, variable-speed vacuum pump, direct-expansion milk cooling and 100kW solar system.

Crops take up the whole farm during growing season – principally canola, barley, oats and lupins, with the remaining land cut annually for fodder production.

Offers worth $24 million are expected, with the Fischer’s dairy herd available to the purchaser by negotiation or the property can be sold as walk-in walk-out.

Meanwhile in Queensland’s South Burnett region, Cherry Creek Estate Orchards, a major avocado aggregation, has hit the market on a sale and leaseback arrangement.

Organic Brothers Farms, founded by Salvatore Leonardi, his younger brother Angelo and Cody Dennis, is expected to attract strong corporate and institutional interest at a value in excess of $40 million.

Salvatore Leonardi, his younger brother Angelo, and Cody Dennis founded the Cherry Creek Estate Orchards.

The Leonardi brothers, who served in the Australian Defence Force including tours of Iraq, East Timor and Afghanistan, are offering the property on an initial 10-year lease, with two 10-year options.

The 674ha aggregation currently has 246ha of mature (more than four-years-old) avocado plantings and about 20ha of juvenile (less than four-years-old) avocado plantings with farm production forecast to increase to 2.39 million kilograms by 2028.

Backed by Merrick Capital, the company also developed Australia’s only commercial avocado oil processing plant, becoming a major Australian avocado oil processor.

CBRE’s John Harrison and Edward O’Dwyer are handling the Cherry Creek Estate Orchards campaign.

Finally, a 2311ha irrigated and dryland holding with significant and secure water entitlements, and a forestry carbon project estimated to be worth 150,000 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) is expected to draw significant interest to the sale of Eastern Tiers, an hour north of Hobart in Tasmania’s Southern Midlands.

Owned by John Hewitt and his son Jack, Eastern Tiers is expected to receive offers worth more than $25 million.

The property has been used to produce livestock and crop varieties including potatoes, cereals, poppies, hemp, carrot seed, oilseed and legumes. There is currently a three-year potato contract in place with Simplot Australia.

The 2311ha irrigated and dryland holding, Eastern Tiers, has been listed for sale.

A substantial 5620ML of water entitlements includes 4120ML of annual surface water, an annual bore water supply of 1500ML and in excess of 4000ML of water storage, along with newly constructed pumping infrastructure.

The property also has 357 hectares of irrigable land, watered by four new Zimmatic centre pivot irrigators, with the opportunity to develop a further 459 hectares of irrigation.

There are also 379 hectares of forestry (recently planted) using plantation methodology to produce ACCUs.

Eastern Tiers is being offered for sale through expressions of interest closing at Thursday, November 30 via LAWD’s Danny Thomas, Elizabeth Doyle and Nutrien Harcourts rural property consultant Tony Maguire.

Earlier this month, a major NSW Riverina farming family also listed its 1420ha Woorndoo cropping aggregation for sale, where offers could reach more than $24 million.