This article is from the Australian Property Journal archive
THE Slack-Smith family has swooped on south west Queensland dryland cropping and irrigation farm Tooroora, putting forward a successful offer of as much as $30 million before auction.
Nutrien Harcourts Queensland’s Andrew Jakins sold the 6,677 hectare lower Balonne property, 12 kilometres northeast of Dirranbandi, for croppers the Sullivan family ahead of the April 21 auction.
Andrew and Jo Slack-Smith from northern NSW will add Tooroora to their farming operation at Burren Junction after paying between $25 million to $30 million, according to The Weekly Times.
The Sullivans had run Tooroora for 18 years. The farm offers quality lower Balonne alluvial flood plain soils and has a developed irrigation area of 780 hectares with 60% newly converted bankless system.
The irrigation water licence is 2,262 megalitres and there is on-farm storage capacity of 12,800 megalitres in three cells, offered at 95% full. Two of the property’s boundaries are formed by the Balonne and Culgao rivers with creeks traversing the property.
There is about 4,028 hectares of dryland farming with good stubble cover and a full moisture profile.
The sale included 530 hectares of cotton and 250 hectares of mung beans.
Improvements include four residences, grain storage facilities, new cattle yards, a sheep feeding facility, main workshop and air strips.
The sale of Tooroora comes shortly after the 19,896-hectare Riverina irrigated cotton operation Kooga Ag Hay Aggregation sold to the Paterson family for $63 million. It had been largely held by former Webster Limited directors Chris Corrigan and David Fitzsimons, while Canada’s PSP Investments was a minor stakeholder.
In March, Australia’s largest irrigated cotton property, Cubbie Station was put back in local hands after Chinese textile giant Shandong Ruyi sold its remaining stake to co-owner Macquarie Asset Management.
Rabobank is expecting a mid-year correction in pricing on the cards for cotton, which hit a 10-year high in April. Cotton prices had doubled in just three years.
