THE famed Channel Country property Nappa Merrie has sold prior to auction to the Goondiwindi based Coulton family's Morella Agriculture.
Morella Agriculture has been leasing the property from Santos.
Located about 300km west of Thargomindah, Nappa Merrie has more than 720,000 hectares (1.78 million acres) of large scale grass finishing country.
The property has the capacity to run about 13,000 head of cattle on average, with significantly higher numbers in optimal seasons.
The property is also is the site of the Burke and Wills historic ‘Dig’ tree, which is on the banks of the Cooper Creek.
Elders Real Estate general manager Tom Russo said it was an opportune time for Santos to divest in the current property cycle.
“We continue to receive extremely strong levels of interest for highly productive properties of this scale, which are in short supply. It’s an exciting time to be an investor in Australian agriculture as we see a perfect storm of robust commodity demand and prices, excellent seasonal conditions, and low interest rates creating unprecedented interest in quality Australian agricultural assets,” Mr Russo said.
“We are also witnessing the emergence of new classes of investors into Australian agricultural properties as a result of the strong macro-economic drivers for the sector and the desire to invest in highly productive land to achieve food security in the fast growing Asia Pacific region,” he said.
Nappa Merrie was first settled by John Conrick in 1871. He walked cattle from Warrnambool in Victoria just 10 years after Burke and Wills travelled through the region.