Agribusiness

THE Note can’t resist indulging in some low-key bragging when the occasion permits; particularly when a story is launched by this newspaper and goes on to make a splash elsewhere.

The revolving door outside the boardroom of budding aquaculture producer Marine Produce Australia, which has been spinning fast for the past year, hit top speed this month.

Australia’s biggest live sheep exporter, Emanuel Exports Pty Ltd, is planning a constitutional challenge to animal cruelty charges brought by the state government under the Animal Welfare Act.

One of the most respected names in Western Australia’s seafood industry is creating a sea change in the retail fish market.

Western Australia’s aquaculture sector, long touted as having strong growth prospects, is moving forward on two fronts, with Marine Produce Australia launching a $4 million capital raising and Western Australian Abalone close to completing a $1.8 million

MARINE Produce Australia has exercised its option to 100 per cent ownership of the Barramundi Sea Cage Farming Joint Venture with Maxima Fish Farms.

ONE business looking to take advantage of the global sustainability phenomenon (see story above) is Perth-based ASX-listed aquaculture company Marine Produce Australia (MPA).

Tony Fini is renowned for his role in establishing one of Western Australia’s most successful property developers, the Fini Group. Now he’s turning his attention to a tourism project in Gingin as Julie-anne Sprague reports.

The State Government has hailed a deal with the Indigenous people of the west Kimberley as a major step towards the long-awaited expansion of the Ord River irrigation project.

The Australian Olive Association will hold its National Olive Industry Conference over Wednesday October 27 to Saturday October 30 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre.

The Richards family, owner of the Richgro garden products business, has expanded its operations by acquiring Amazon Soils and Landscaping Supplies.

Integrated Tree Cropping will be the second largest integrated hardwood timber company listed on the Australian Stock Exchange following completion of its acquisition of Vict

Caratti and PMR likely to settle 

ANYONE remotely interested in politics would be well aware of the Howard Government’s focus on families in last week’s budget.

REGULAR Gusto readers will remember this correspondent’s culinary sojourn through Europe last year.

FORMER property developer Tony Fini has unveiled an ambitious plan to establish a new tourism venture at his family’s olive grove near Gingin, north of Perth.

THE Catalano family know their fish. Indeed, it would be hard not to for a family that has known nothing else since Frank Catalano bought a fish and chip shop more than 30 years ago.

GRAHAM Laitt is aiming to build a $100 million WA agribusiness enterprise after taking control of Welshpool-based Milne Feeds and folding it into his pastoral holdings.

AGRO-FORESTRY group ITC’s capital raising of between $13 million and $15 million is more than a cosmetic effort to improve its appeal to foreign interests.

WA PLANTATION manager Integrated Tree Cropping claims to have been the first to get its prospectuses through under the Australian Securities and Investments Commision’s new guidelines.

THE Australian Wheat Board’s privatisation plans have stalled.

CORPORATE farming, once touted as the future of agriculture, seems to have lost its appeal.

The Australian Wheat Board hopes to be both a publicly listed company and Australia’s largest grain agribusiness within the next twelve months.

The Australian Wheat Board, privatised on 1 July 1999, is operating under a new structure which, according to AWB Limited WA regional manager, Greg Harvey, is more commercially focussed while continuing to be customer driven.