Since joining Rifa 18 months ago David Goodfellow has overseen about $1.2 million invested in the Chinese company's Victorian Western District property "Blackwood" at Dunkeld so it will double its carrying capacity to 2000 cattle and up to 20,000 sheep.
Rifa’s Salutary Pastoral is still looking to buy and develop more property in western Victoria to make the area one of its key production hubs.
"We want to build a significant business in Australia, but we're in no hurry," said Mr Goodfellow, the chief executive who previously headed Elders' Australian branch network, and still retains close agency contacts to help build Rifa's property investment and stock marketing plans.
"We'll chip away at what will work best. We don't want to buy into any investment mistakes.
"While there may have been some initial anxiety about our plan, people have seen the significant investment and improvements we've made at `Blackwood’ (bought in 2014).
“They see new gear, new buildings, new pasture programs - long-term benefits to agriculture and regional communities in our model."
Mr Goodfellow has not ruled out buying into the meat processing sector, too, however at present Rifa Salutary was primarily content to be in the beef production business, supplying where demand was available.
While its Salutary brand was associated with meat lines sold from its farms in north-western China, Australian production was not earmarked for the Chinese market.
"Our chairman has the view that a rising export tide floats all boats in the agricultural marketplace, so we're not aligned to any specific export or domestic buyers, although clearly we see opportunities to supply abattoirs at Inverell or Queensland from our Gravesend aggregation."
Andrew Marshall
National agribusiness writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
National agribusiness writer for Fairfax Agricultural Media.
