The Farmers Club

The “Club Notes” for Monday, the 22nd of July, 2024.

By Dwain Duxson

Blue Gum era revisited

Good morning live from Orange in NSW, were we will be stationed for a week. We had a stand at the Bendigo Sheep Show over the weekend, where I caught up with many of you, which was great. One of the concerns from probably half a dozen Farmers was the buying-up of Land earmarked for Timber plantation planting for Carbon Credit Harvesting. One German company has been very active in the Simpson area in Southern Victoria. You will read in the Rural Property section below how Woodside Petroleum has been buying Farms in WA and now has purchased one at Delegate in South East NSW. In all cases they are taking perfectly good Farming Land and planting trees. Is this the Blue Gum era revisited? Many will remember the Managed Investment Schemes (MIS), these companies bought up Farms, mainly in Southern Victoria, South East of SA and South West WA. They would buy Farms at over-inflated prices and then plant Blue Gums on them. The MIS industry ended up imploding because of its dodgy nature, and Farmers bought the Land back at a much lower rate compared to the arable Land price at the time and either had to Harvest the Timber or renovate the Land that had already been Harvested. Most of this Land has been returned to Agricultural production. Woodside and the like can see that they are not going to be able to offset their dirty practices by getting Farmers on board, so they figure they will do it themselves. This Carbon Credit thing could be as dodgy as the MIS model was, and if so, it will implode, too. We have already seen evidence of that. Another story for another day. Are you concerned about this trend? Reply to [email protected] 

The Farmers Club - Non-Commodity Thinking

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