Agribusiness buzz in brief

Caribbean-based Mr Lewis' investment group, Tavistock, has been creeping up the AA Company's share register since its AA Trust began buying in 2010.

The latest purchases cost between $1.62 a share and $1.27 for multiple weekly transactions of up to 363,000 shares at a time.

In the meantime, Mr Lewis has also been defending allegations in the US claiming he provided insider information about AACo's affairs to his own employees which could have assisted their share interests.

He has denied claims, made by the New York Southern District Attorney's office, alleging he made use of confidential details about the company's potential cattle losses during the 2019 North Queensland floods.

Meanwhile, AACo, Australia's oldest continuously operating company, has signed up as a principal partner for next year's Beef Australia event, and for Beef2027.

AACo also celebrates its 200th anniversary in 2024.

American food processing company, Lamb Weston Holdings, will take over Victorian frozen potato products business, Crackerjack Foods, which has plants at Keilor and Campbellfield in Melbourne.

The Idaho-based Lamb Weston is one of the world's largest producers and processors of frozen french fries and other frozen potato products, and already operates its own two facilities in Hallam, in Melbourne.

The Crackerjack brand is well established in the food distribution sector, synonymous with potato cakes, and battered snacks made at a new highly automated plant at Campbellfield.

Lamb Weston's Oceania general manager, Simone Anderson, said Crackerjack Foods was "a great fit", adding to the US company's existing product offering and processing capabilities.

Crackerjack Foods chief executive officer, Bill Fotiadis, said Lamb Weston shared many of his company's values, providing confidence that the business' future and its employees were in the best hands.

Becoming a board director is not for everyone, but for farmers keen to be active in representing their industry, GrainGrowers is paving the way by inviting applicants to its OnBoard directorship program.

The initiative provides professional development to meet the challenges of the modern boardroom.

Applications for the OnBoard program are open until October 2.

The program combines leadership development and governance skills in a schedule designed specifically for growers, including the Australian Institute of Company Directors course.

"We know growers already run innovative and progressive businesses, but we're looking to take this talent and provide the skills needed for therm to step forward at a board level," said GrainGrowers chief executive officer, Shona Gawel.

Research by lobby group, National Seniors, shows older people will consider investing in climate change solutions, if there is a simple and safe way to do it.

One in four people aged over 50 already invested in term deposits or government bonds and 54 per cent of those were interested in buying some form of Green Bond issued to finance projects certified as offering environmental benefits.

The federal government plans to issue Green Bonds from July next year, but National Seniors pointed out they would initially be available only to institutional investors.

When they did become available to individuals, it was likely many potential investors would be discouraged because they would not be so easy to buy.

Research showed, most people opted for term deposits over bonds, most likely because they could be bought over the counter or online via a bank, while government bonds required a broker, which was not as simple.

Australian households have a total $1.3 trillion in savings and deposit accounts.

In Britain, Green Savings Bonds help meet its 2050 zero emissions target and were readily available via the national savings bank, paying 5.7pc interest annually over three years.

A newly released Emissions Reduction Roadmap for the Australian grape and wine sector has outlined practical steps to reduce the sector's carbon emissions by about 42 per cent by 2030.

Developed by Wine Australia with global sustainability advisor, Edge Impact, in consultation with the grape and wine community, the ERR roadmap provides an industry-endorsed and science-backed pathway to cutting emissions sector-wide.

"Our roadmap identifies the current footprint of the Australian grape and wine sector and key areas where emissions reduction can be achieved," said Wine Australia's senior research and innovation program manager, Dr Sharon Harvey.

"It provides practical steps for growers, winemakers, and others in the value chain to reduce emissions from today."

The roadmap outlines 11 initiatives for cost savings and cutting emissions in vineyards, wineries and through the supply chain.

It is accompanied by a reference manual which growers and winemakers can use to take action in their own businesses.

Plant-based medicine company, Cannatrek, has received GMP accreditation from the Theraputic Goods Administratin for its Shepparton facility, which promises to boost Victoria's advanced pharmaceutical manufacturing sector.

The $5 million manufacturing plant is part of a broader $17m investment planned by Cannatrek in the Goulburn Valley, which includes cannabis cultivation and end-to-end manufacturing of medicinal cannabis products.

Founder, Tommy Huppert, said accreditation would enable the company to do more production in-house, deliver full control over product quality, and make more products available for patients, faster and at a lower cost.

In the next three years, the facility and its nearby grow and post-harvest facility, were expected to create 70-plus jobs.

Since 2021 Cannatrek had more than doubled revenues to $89m (unaudited).

The company had grown from a team of just three in 2019 to more than 130, mainly in Victoria and Queensland, and established a national distribution partnership with Chemist Warehouse.

Northern NSW-based Norco dairy co-operative, has entered the augmented reality universe with "Cow's Play", a gamified approach to educating children about where milk comes from and the importance of animal wellbeing in producing great tasting milk.

With research revealing that one in four children aged five to 12 thought their food originated from a supermarket shelf, the immersive "Cows Play" game aims to keep Norco's virtual cows - Elle and Belle - happy through different forms of enrichment while delivering fun and engaging dairy facts.

The augmented reality game can only be played by scanning the QR code on specially marked Norco labels of two- and three-litre full cream and light milks, and two litre lactose-free milk between August and November.

The "Cow's Play" game was launched at Queensland's Royal Queensland Exhibition (Ekka) in Brisbane and is now on product labels in supermarkets.

An integrated advertising campaign has supported the launch, featuring Norco farmers, Scott and Renae Connell, demonstrating how they enrich the lives of their cows.

Central Queensland University has been selected to deliver Phase Two of a new AgriFutures project aimed at introducing secondary students to diverse careers available in agriculture.

The Cultivating Futures: Engaging Secondary School Students in the World of Agricultural Careers project will see agricultural researchers and experts from CQUniversity's agricultural education and extension cluster develop resources and tools to be utilised to raise the career aspirations of high school students to pursue agricultural industry careers.

University experts will collaborate with teachers and careers advisors across Australia to design relevant, engaging and future-focused content.

CQUniversity was also the successful research partner for first phase of the project which involved an online survey and series of focus groups with NSW teachers and careers advisors to assess their perceptions and knowledge of agriculture and gain an understanding of how career education occurred in their school.