CANBERRA: Western Australia’s main grain handler, the CBH Group, is going into the fertiliser business. CBH Group chairman Wally Newman said growers had been asking the co-operative to explore farm input costs for some time and it would now offer fertiliser supplies at collection points close to CBH’s Kwinana and Geraldton port terminals.
He said co-operative members were surveyed and there was a lot of support. “Better than 70 per cent, so it’s something that’s really requested by our members,” he said.
“Our management always look at any of the costs in our supply chain and we believe there are opportunities there and the margins look to be justifiable.” Mr Newman said the fertiliser base products will be handled by Qube and operate like any other fertiliser distribution centre and there was also a potential to expand the operation.
“That will depend on the uptake. We suspect the uptake will be very good and if it’s as good, as we suspect, then it will be expanded to probably Albany and Esperance,” he said. Mr Newman said the CBH Group was open to expanding into other farm inputs in the future.
“We make very business orientated decisions and if there’s an opportunity in the supply chain where we believe that we can benefit our members, then we’ll have a close look at it and then we’ll make a decision based on what we think the opportunities are,” he said.
