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Warakirri Cropping

The future of farms: grow better, grow more

You don’t need to live on the land to reap the rewards of stable, sustainable agriculture. That’s because Rest invests some of your super savings with Warakirri Cropping.

By 2050, it’s estimated that the world will need to produce up to 54% more food, feed, and biofuels than in 2012 to feed a projected global population of 9.7 billion people. Current farming as we know it is unlikely to meet that demand. Instead, agriculture of the future will need to be more sustainable by producing more from less, and that’s where we believe Warakirri Cropping comes in.

Warakirri Cropping owns and operates 155,000 hectares across 11 large-scale and highly productive farms in four states, harvesting more than 400,000 tonnes of grain every year. This makes it one of the largest grain producers in Australia. 

 

Why we invest in the land

Rest invests in agriculture because we believe it offers an opportunity for long-term investment returns and can provide portfolio stability when markets are volatile.

That’s because agricultural assets are not usually traded like shares on a stock exchange. This can make them harder to buy and sell than shares, but it can also make their value more stable, because agricultural assets tend to not be subject to the same ups and downs as share markets. 

farmers walking through a field farmers walking through a field
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Did you know?

Warakirri is an Aboriginal word meaning ‘grow’ in the language of the Ngembi people.

Growing more from less

Sustainability is a key value of Warakirri Cropping’s operations and includes a commitment to implement new ways to grow more with less.

  • Its farms are rainfed, relying only on natural rainwater rather than irrigation.
  • Across its holdings, it uses high-tech, camera-guided sprayers that precisely target weeds from crops when spraying. This cost-cutting technology reduces the use of chemical sprays by up to 90% compared to a conventional machine that sprays the entire field.
  • Nitrogen is a powerful and effective ingredient in fertiliser. But some of it can escape the soil and contaminate water sources or enter the atmosphere, where it acts as a warming greenhouse gas. At its Lobethal farm east of Esperance WA, the Warakirri Cropping team works to limit nitrogen escape by applying the precise amount of nitrogen required for optimal crop growth.
  • Also at the Lobethal farm, trials were conducted in the 2023 winter crop of a new fertiliser that releases less nitrous oxide, another potent greenhouse gas.
  • At Orange Park and Cowabbie-Mukorra in southern NSW, crop stubble is kept on the soil surface after harvest instead of being burnt off. This improves the soil for the next crop, reduces water loss, and can increase grain yield by 10%.

We’ve been investing in Warakirri Cropping for the past 25 years, and we share its view that more sustainable practices can help drive financial benefit for Rest members.

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