Mullewa, Hopetoun, South Yilgarn: Three WA farms sold for almost $60m

A variety of corporate and family buyers have swooped on three major WA farms sold in separate deals worth almost $60m combined.

Three Western Australian farms have been snapped up in separate deals worth almost $60 million combined.

Daisy Downs, which spans 22,568ha in WA’s midwest, has been sold in a deal worth $23 million to BP’s Australian carbon farming entity.

The global energy giant via Low Carbon Australia has purchased the massive cropping property, located north of Mullewa and 120km from Geraldton.

The property was listed for sale late last year by Perth-based corporate investor PenAgri.

Comprising strong red loam soils, Daisy Downs was used mostly for cropping with the non-arable portion suitable for a carbon project.

Ray White Rural WA’s Simon Wilding handled the sale.

Daisy Downs has been sold by Perth-based corporate investor PenAgri.

Meanwhile in the south of the state, 3212ha of mixed farmland 20km from Hopetoun has been sold to a local farming family for a figure about its listed price of $22.8 million.

The original farming family who had held the land since the 1960s has sold the properties, known as Woodstock and Horners Lot 1.

Ray White Rural WA selling agent Frank Miles handled the sale and said the result was “very strong”.

“There is a very strong demand for land here in the south. Everything is selling quickly and at levels we have not seen,” he said.

Woodstock and Horners Lot 1 comprises 2628ha of arable land with 1982ha under crop rotation and 646ha under pasture alongside 1000 ewes plus lambs.

Meanwhile prominent farmer John Nicoletti has reportedly purchased Cheriton Farms in WA’s eastern wheatbelt for about $10 million.

It comprises 7329ha of mixed dryland cropping and grazing property at South Yilgarn, 130km southeast of Merredin.

Cheriton Farms, owned by the vendors since the 1970s, reportedly neighbours some of Mr Nicoletti’s farmland.

About 84 per cent of Cheriton Farms is arable, with the owners adopting a one-in-two-out cropping rotation system.

Under this system, around 2000ha is annually cropped to wheat, oats or lupins, while the balance is grazed by 1500 ewes and lambs.