RMWAH’s purchase of Henbury Cattle Station, NT – on ABC Landline

March 23rd, 2012

R.M. Williams Agricultural Holdings (RMWAH) ‘carbon farming’ plans for Henbury cattle Station will feature on ABC television’s Landline programme at noon this Sunday (25th March).  Landline is repeated at 11.00 each Monday morning. Henbury is a cattle station located in the Alice Springs region of the Northern Territory, and was purchased last year by RMWAH with the help […]

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AACo – Corella Lake on Brunette Downs

March 17th, 2012

It was nice to open up the Townsville Bulletin today and see David Farley, CEO of the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo).  Because he is standing in front of one of my aerial photographs of Corella Lake, one of the large freshwater lakes on the AAco’s blue-ribbon cattle station in the Northern Territory, Brunette Downs. The […]

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Tanumbirini Station sold to Thames Pastoral Company

February 23rd, 2012

Baldy Bay Pty Ltd  has sold the NT’s Tanumbirini Station to a business apparently new to rural Australia, and about which very little is publicly known – Thames Pastoral Company.  Tanumbirini Station was previously owned by Henry & Maria Townshend, who sold it in 2006. According to Beef Central, David Connolly is the manager of Thames […]

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Best Rangeland Practice and Innovation (Bestprac)

January 24th, 2012

There’s a great source of useful rural management stories and interesting information on the ‘Bestprac’ website.  Bestprac is supported by AWI (Australian Wool Innovation) and specialises in the promotion of best practice management of arid rangelands, helping cattle producers as well as sheepmeat/wool producers located in more sparsely settled areas (i.e. lower rainfall farming regions) hear first hand stories from […]

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Australia’s pastoral companies – land ownership & changes; corporate & family

December 20th, 2011

Most of Australia’s largest pastoral companies, whether publicly or privately owned, list the cattle stations, sheep properties, farms and feedlots owned, on their websites. This was not always the case and it is probably only done these days to help secure the attention of prospective employees. The Australian Agricultural Company (AACo) is publicly owned and […]

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Peter Sherwin – Sherwin Pastoral Company

December 14th, 2011

Discovered a very interesting newspaper article on Peter Sherwin, titled ‘Peter Sherwin:  the battles of a real strange critter’.  Written by Colleen Ryan and Sue Lecky, this lengthy article on Peter Sherwin was published in the Sydney Morning Herald on January 7th 1989.  It can be read now on the Toowoomba Hotel website.  As they say, […]

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Keeping up with the Joneses of Coolibah Station, on NZ TV, and rural television

November 19th, 2011

“Keeping up with the Joneses’ of Coolibah Station (NT) is now screening on television in other countries. ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ debuted on TV One in New Zealand today, in prime time – 7pm on a Saturday night (filling the gap made by Country Calendars break for the summer).  And if website traffic is […]

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Vestey cattle properties resumed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez

November 3rd, 2011

The British company ‘Vestey Group’  was founded in 1897 by brothers William and Edmund Vestey.  Around the early 1900’s the Vestey family company had begun purchasing agricultural land in South American countries and Australia, and over the decades the company developed vertical integration – cattle stations, meatworks (eg at Wyndham [WA], Bullocky Point in Darwin [NT] and Lakes Creek […]

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Foreign ownership of Australian land and water

October 4th, 2011

There has been quite a bit written about recently published figures by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showing the percentage of overseas ownership of Australian land.  Many writers have conveniently interpreted the figures to mean Australians are a paranoid, parochial lot – unreasonably concerned with mythically increasing overseas ownership. There is virtually no objective analysis and in-depth discussion of […]

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Ken Warriner and Consolidated Pastoral Company (CPC)

August 22nd, 2011

Mark Irwin became the new CEO of Consolidated Pastoral Company on 1st August, replacing  long-term CPC CEO Ken Warriner.  However Ken will stay on as CPC Chairman, and still presumably owns a 10% stake in the company. Consolidated Pastoral Company (CPC) is Australia’s second largest beef producing company, after the Australian Agricultural Company (AACo).  In 1983 Kerry Packer […]

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