The Australian Agricultural Company (AAco) was established as a land development company in 1824. This was with the assistance of the British Parliament with a Crown Grant of 1,000,000 acres in the Port Stephens area of the Colony of New South Wales. Thus, 2001 marks 177 years of continuous operation making AAco one of the oldest companies in Australia after the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac Bank).
Presently AAco is Australia’s largest beef cattle producer with 26 properties across the Northern Territory and Queensland covering an area of 7 million hectares.
AAco´s success can be related to several unifying factors. We have always operated on a grand scale and today this translates in to powerful economies of scale. The meticulous control of expenditure has led to low production costs; investment has been in prime land and breeding stock; diversification has taken place in different geographic regions to mitigate the effects of droughts; and AAco has loyal staff, many providing a lifetime of service.
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The Company was formed in 1824 to "extend and improve the flocks of Merino sheep" in New South Wales. The initial land grant at Port Stephens proved unsuitable and, in 1831, a proportion of this was exchanged for 101,000 ha at Warrah on the Liverpool Plai ... > read more
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Pastoral Land had been opened up in Northern Australia by squatters, and the Governments of Queensland and South Australia (affecting the Northern Territory) contrived leases for the more remote pastoral lands around 1869.
The 1880s had seen refrigera ... > read more
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The move into cattle encouraged integration and the use of Santa Gertrudis cattle which were suitable for the Barkly Tableland and for upgrading the Shorthorn herds. Cattle markets changed rapidly with the close of the UK outlet, heralding entry into the ... > read more
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Pressures were on to supply consumers’ needs by further integration and intensification and required the full focus on northern beef production, which had the benefit of low cost of production.
In 1990, the Goonoo aggregation was put together in Centr ... > read more
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