Agricultural finance in New England and the North West.

The New England and North West region produces around a fifth of all New South Wales agriculture, and it splits into two very different halves. Out on the North West Plains, Moree, Narrabri and the Liverpool Plains are cotton and grain country: broadacre cropping alone runs close to a billion dollars, cotton accounts for nearly half the state's crop, and Narrabri and Moree are rated among the two most productive agricultural shires in Australia in a normal season. Up on the New England Tablelands the ground turns to fine wool, prime beef and fat lamb, with a fine-wool clip that supplies some of the world's top fashion houses.

Two farming systems means two funding problems. Cropping on the plains is heavily capital-hungry and seasonal, cotton and grain both cash flowing in one hit at harvest, while the grazing enterprises up on the tablelands turn on buying and holding livestock through a strong cattle market. Banks price broadacre and grazing security conservatively and move at their own pace. Private agricultural finance keeps a season funded or a line of cattle bought when the bank cannot.

On the cropping side, a seasonal facility funds a cotton or grain crop, inputs going out well ahead of harvest, and clears when the crop is sold, so the finance is timed to the header rather than a fixed monthly bill. For the grazing side, livestock can be funded to 100% of purchase, secured against the cattle or sheep and repaid when they are sold.

Farmland and grazing country sit on term finance to around 65% of value, more for development, and the seasonal, livestock and land lines can be stacked so a mixed operation is funded as one rather than three competing loans.

We are based on the Gold Coast, an hour from the New South Wales border, and arrange finance for producers across New England and the North West, from the cotton and grain around Moree, Narrabri and Gunnedah to the wool and cattle country around Tamworth, Armidale and Glen Innes. The lender's valuer works the property on the ground; we run the deal from here.