Agricultural finance in the Wide Bay.

The Wide Bay Burnett is one of the most productive farming regions in the country for its size, turning out around $1.5 billion of agricultural production, roughly 12% of Queensland's total. Bundaberg alone grows about a fifth of the state's sugar cane, but these days the region is better known for horticulture. It is Australia's largest producer of macadamias and avocados, grows close to all of Queensland's mandarins, and is a major source of sweet potatoes and passionfruit. Since 2000 the macadamia crop has grown almost five-fold, and Bundaberg is now the country's biggest macadamia district.

Tree crops and vegetables finance very differently to broadacre grain and cane. A macadamia or avocado orchard takes years to come into full production, irrigation and water security matter enormously in a region of variable rainfall, and the cash lands in a tight window each season. Banks are cautious on horticultural security and slow on the capital a grower needs to plant, expand or carry a season. Private agricultural finance is set up around that.

For horticulture the pressure point is the season: a facility that funds inputs, harvest labour and packing, then clears when the crop is sold, rather than a monthly repayment that ignores when the money actually comes in. The same seasonal structure suits a cane crop through to the mill.

Land and orchards sit on term finance to around 65% of value, with more for development, so buying a block, putting in trees or expanding irrigation can be funded alongside the seasonal facility. Where livestock is part of the operation, it can be funded to 100% and secured against the stock in its own right.

We are based on the Gold Coast and arrange finance for growers across the Wide Bay Burnett, from the cane and macadamia country around Bundaberg to the horticulture and grazing through the Burnett. The lender's valuer works the property on the ground; we run the deal from here, so the distance does not slow it.