THE Federal Government’s ‘green bank’ has teamed up with a Canadian investment group to make a $200 million investment into a “sustainable agriculture platform”, with the aim of driving down emissions from the sector.
The $150 million CDPQ (Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec) investment in new entity, Wilga Farming will be met with $50 million from the Federal Government’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation. The $200m investment will be managed by Gunn Agri Partners, a fund that was established in 2013. At the same time, the green bank and the Canadian investment company have acquired a minority stake in Gunn Agri.
The Wilga Farming platform last month secured The Glen, a 1200ha property near Inverell in northern NSW, as a seed asset. Beef Central understands it paid between $9 million and $12 million for the cropping and grazing asset.
The CEFC said the company has identified a range of initiatives to reduce its emissions, including reducing the use of synthetic fertiliser, improved landscape function to slow overland water flows, and the implementation of grazing management and soil carbon improvements.
CEFC head of natural capital Heechung Sung said the aim was to demonstrate the potential for institutional capital in driving down emissions.
“We believe there is enormous untapped potential for new investment in a sustainable future for agriculture as part of a net zero economy,” Ms Sung said.
“By facilitating the flow of much-needed capital into the sector, our work with CDPQ supports the decarbonisation efforts of farmers while boosting production and enabling them to remain competitive globally. The platform will showcase market leading sustainable land practices to farmers across multiple production and climate regions, offering a pathway to reduce their carbon footprint.”
Gunn Agri Partners founding chair Bill Gunn said the company was keen to deliver returns on the investment.
“The DNA of our business is to be completely investor-aligned, to capture timely opportunities and to develop and operate assets with sustainability as a fundamental part of our management. I am very proud that is exactly what we have delivered on,” Mr Gunn said.
Gunn Agri Partners was established in 2013 and has more than one million hectares of grazing pastures and forests in Northern Australia and is on track to deliver target returns. Our second strategy, focused on row crops is fully deployed and has recorded above target returns to date. Our permanent crop strategy is fully deployed and has received follow-on investments.”
Source: CEFC
CDPQ, founded by an act of the Quebec parliament, is effectively a sovereign wealth fund. When teamed up with the Australian Government’s CEFC, and with the farms being managed by a consulting firm, that’s a lot of executive mouths to feed. It won’t make a profit, certainly won’t pay any tax, and won’t teach Australian farmers a thing.
Wel said Will and Mathew.
This government is blindly following a carbon reduction path that will ultimately send our country back decades economically.
Why is tax payer funding this purchase with a foreign company ???
Unbelievable corruption of government spending. It is happening too often.
Governments should not be investing in private enterprises.
Surely someone is going to tighten up this kind of “funding.” Why are we/the government pumping money into multi-million or billion dollar companies to help them run their farms better under the guise of some fairly dubious pretences. This stinks a lot like the Macquarie portfolio where by they were granted funding amongst other things to push all of their paddock trees out to create and demonstrate efficiencies in dryland agriculture. Imagine if agriculture saw money like that going into developing and or genetically modifying pasture or cropping species that have 10x the growth of our current annual and perennial, legume, grass and cropping cultivars that required the same current inputs and had pest and disease resistance. Or even the ability to produce under waterlogging and saline environments. Throw in ontop of that the dung beetle industry could live of the interest on that 50 million and combat the carbon that was left over.
Governments interventions in private enterprises is out of hand.
Governments should provide the economic environment to facilitate investment, not succumb to ‘influencers’ seeking free money.
Where is the free market heading and is it the Government’s desire to not only takeover the ‘free market’ economy but to also control personal income so it can control voting?
I am worried for the future of this nation.