An artist’s impression of the proposed Pacific Seeds development. Source: Sims White Architects

PACIFIC Seeds has submitted plans to local government for a proposed new Australian headquarters it hopes to build at Wellcamp, west of Toowoomba.

Located on a 6.3ha site, the planned facility will house research and development, warehousing, and dispatch infrastructure, and supporting office space for administration and finance.

According to documents lodged with the Toowoomba Regional Council late last year, the development will “serve as the Australian headquarters” and “will operate as a seed-processing facility that grows, cleans, tests, bags, stores and dispatches seed from small-scale packet seeds to a bulk commercial scale”.

It may be delivered in one or two stages and would comprise a total gross floor area of 19,620 square metres, serviced by 105 car parks and 28 trailer bays.

An artist’s impression of the proposed shadehouses. Source: Sims White Architects

“The site layout has also been designed to allow future expansion,” the planning document said.

The proposed development incorporates a range of components, including areas used for administration, main processing and warehouse, parent seed area, workshop, seed vault cold store, grow rooms, wash bay, and shadehouses for summer crops and canola.

It is estimated that the facility will provide storage for “thousands of tonnes of both bulk commercial seed and finished, bagged goods”.

More than 100 staff could work at the facility, though not all are expected to be on site at the same time.

Agribusiness precinct

The new facility will be located within the Australian Agrifood Technology Logistics Innovation Solutions Precinct (AATLIS).

The 760ha industrial site already houses NuFarm Seeds, John Deere hub RDO Equipment, Barenbrug, Pioneer Seeds, and AgriBusiness Connect, a hub for promoting collaboration and innovation in the agribusiness sector.

The precinct has direct access to road freight networks and is close to the proposed Inland Rail route.

Planning documents say the Pacific Seeds facility is expected to make use of this infrastructure.

“The development will utilise the substantial road-freight network that has been established which will provide opportunities from easier distribution of products across Queensland.

“Further, the development will benefit from access to Wellcamp Airport and, once complete, freight movements associated with the Inland Rail.

“The facility will service the development and economic development growth of south-western Queensland.”

Current facility

Pacific Seeds’ existing Australian headquarters sits on a corner block in Harristown, Toowoomba, where space for future expansion is limited.

The company has operated from the site for several decades, using former army sheds and constructing purpose-built facilities.

Seven years ago, Pacific Seeds completed the installation of a state-of-the-art $2.4 million processing plant.

The new facility combined Australian and global technologies to increase seed processing capacity by 30 percent and significantly improved seed cleaning and treatment across a wide range of crops.

In 2023, the site came up for sale, with the listing revealing that Pacific Seeds had been a long-term lessee of the 3.72ha precinct.

The listing featured a 1200sqm office building, 3800sqm storage warehouse, and 1400sqm research laboratory.

Alongside its Toowoomba site, Pacific Seeds operates two properties in Kununurra spanning a combined 900ha, producing a range of seeds including grain sorghum, forage sorghum, field corn, sweet corn and parent seed.

Pacific Seeds is a brand of Advanta Seeds, whose parent is UPL, formerly United Phosphorus Limited, which is headquartered in Mumbai, India.