Cowal Agriculture Portfolio is for sale. Photo: LAWD

INVESTOR Global Ag has called time on its sizeable Central Queensland cropping holding, Cowal Ag Portfolio.

Being offered through a LAWD expressions-of-interest campaign which closes December 2, the portfolio covers 5976 hectares in two parcels, both within easy distance of Emerald.

Its standout feature is water, with entitlements comprising 27,157 megalitres of medium-priority water and 4648ML of unsupplemented water, and a 12-kilometre frontage to the Nogoa River.

It sits downstream of Fairbairn Dam, and has 3549ha developed for irrigated row-cropping, and 144ha under centre-pivot irrigation, with the balance being dryland cropping and grazing and support land.

The property grows cotton, chickpeas, mungbeans and wheat, and is in close proximity to Emerald’s two cotton gins, and to GrainCorp’s Yamala site for grain and pulse deliveries.

Suited to funds

Cowal Agriculture’s cornerstone is the property Braylands, which covers more than 2000ha of mostly irrigated country on the Nogoa floodplain.

It was purchased by the now defunct PrimeAg Australia, which added other properties to it, and then sold it in 2013 to an entity affiliated with US-based investment fund Global Endowment Management.

It is being sold as the fund is now being wound up.

“It would certainly be an option to keep in place the management team, which is very capable and highly qualified,” LAWD agent Simon Cudmore said.

Mr Cudmore is handling the Cowal Ag listing in conjunction with Danny Thomas.

Cowal Ag is being marketed as having potential for part of its area to go into permanent tree planting as the CQ sees investment from entities including Costa Group Holdings in horticulture.

Costa in June spent more than $200 million on 2PH Farms, which has 1474ha of citrus plus 240ha of table grapes, and irrigation entitlements from Fairbairn Dam.

“At Cowal, the water is a feature because of the channel that delivers it from Fairbairn Dam, and the significant water allocation.”

Mr Cudmore said Cowal Ag was highly suitable to cotton, in part because of the region’s long planting window.

It is also a reliable grower of chickpeas, and those grown in CQ often enjoy a premium over product from southern Queensland and northern New South Wales because of their favourable colour, and because they become available at the front of the Australian shipping year.