A PREMIUM listing has been offered to the Western Australian rural property market with the property Dambadgee Springs at Dandaragan.
The offering comprises farmland from two vendors, Mat and Jade Stoney of Stoney Agri and ASX-listed Alterra, who have joined together to present to the market a 4170 hectare listing, which is a substantial size for the region.
The property is joint listed through Terry Norrish, Landmark Harcourts and Steve Vaughan, Ray White Rural WA.
Mr Norrish said bundling the two properties together as one offering opened it up to a wider market as it could be divided or sold as one parcel.
"Being offered as a whole, it appeals more to outside buyers like corporates," Mr Norrish said.
Key features of the property are its location and proximity to Perth, available spring and bore water and reliable annual average rainfall of 520 millimetres.
"It is also part of Yathroo, which is one of WA's most prestigious grazing properties," he said.
"There are few properties that are of the premium calibre of Yathroo and it is what you would call iconic."
Mr Vaughan echoed his
co-listing agent's comments, saying the two properties complemented each other to be one parcel.
"Together they make for a great parcel of land," Mr Vaughan said.
"The structure of both properties complement each other - they offer different soil types and one is more cropping, while the other is grazing, so they offer good diversity in one parcel."
Mr Vaughan said at this time in the selling season, it was very difficult to find properties of this calibre, making it quite a standout listing.
"Any bit of country with these credentials would be considered a one-off," he said.
As well as being one of the earliest properties to be established in the district, founded soon after a settler expedition in 1848, Yathroo holds historical significance for its association with Walter Padbury and Edward Roberts.
The first lease was taken up by William Brockman in the late-1840s of 4000 acres (1619 hectares), then in 1855 Mr Padbury purchased the lease, which by then had expanded to 16,000ac (6475ha).
As well as employing many ticket-of-leave convicts and skilled tradesmen, Mr Padbury spent a great deal of time and money developing Yathroo into one of the finest pastoral properties in the State.
Mr Roberts worked for Mr Padbury for more than three decades and became a prominent settler in the region.
In 1892 he purchased Yathroo for 20,000 pounds.
Throughout these decades Yathroo was the main centre for the district, with a school, post office and flour mill, which relates to its Aborigianl meaning, according to local dialect, of a "meeting place of three roads".
The Stoneys own about 2532ha of the Dambadgee Springs offering, which is part of Yathroo.
The couple purchased Yathroo, of almost 12,000ha, in May 2017 from a Kuwaiti businessman for $41 million.
Before that it was owned by the late media tycoon and businessman Alan Bond.
Mr Stoney's father, Trevor, is a director of Alterra and a well-known and successful businessman who sold another premium property of 14,500ha, The Grange, Dongara, to live export company Wellard for about $40m in 2010.
This was just three years after he purchased it for a reported $23.5m.
Dairy business and carbon plantation manager Alterra purchased the 1638ha property, Dambadgee Springs, which was formerly part of Yathroo, in March 2017 for $4.2m.
The company acquired the property as an investment with the potential of converting it to an intensive, new-generation System-5 style dairy.
System 5 dairy farming is common in the United States, Europe and New Zealand but less so in Australia and there is little known activity of it in WA.
Based on the theory that cows produce significantly more milk when they are comfortable, the method involves providing climate-controlled barns for cows to shelter them from the elements.
It also allows them to walk shorter distances for milking.
The company said in an ASX statement a few months ago that "while feasibility studies were indicative of potentially attractive returns from conversion to dairy, risks including the market conditions and WA processors' reluctance to commit to long-term off-take agreements resulted in a decision not to proceed" with the development of a System-5 style dairy.
Atlerra's property has been under a three-year lease to Stoney Agri for $210,000 per annum, which is due to end in April.
In 2008, Alterra (previously Carbon Conscious Ltd) began developing its plantation, which resulted in planting 21 million eucalyptus trees on 18,000 hectares across 30 properties in the South West.
Then at the start of 2019, the assets relating to the carbon projects were demerged to Carbon Conscious Investments Limited, which Atlerra has a 15 per cent stake in.
Atlerra and the Stoneys could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
