Almonds not a nutty choice
Directors of a Victorian almond project are claiming it is an income producing investment, rather than the more traditional tax-effective agriculture scheme
Blaxland Rural Investments director Ron Collins says the project is a 25 year income stream, in an established industry and using an experienced manager in almond production.
Directors of a Victorian almond project are claiming it is an income producing investment, rather than the more traditional tax-effective agriculture scheme
Blaxland Rural Investments director Ron Collins says the project is a 25 year income stream, in an established industry and using an experienced manager in almond production.
"We are talking about an established business using a publicly listed company, Select Harvests, to run the project," he says.
The project involves planting almond trees in a 280-hectare plantation in north-ern Victoria. Select already manages 1,100 hectares in the same area and will use its growing expertise in the Blaxland project.
Each investor will get 0.4 hectares with 100 trees for an investment of $20,000 spread over four years.
The almond trees have an economic life of about 25 years and start producing a viable crop after three years. The trees are yielding about 2.5 tonnes of al-monds per hectare with a price of $6.75 per kilo last year.
While there are some diseases that affect almonds, Collins says the main risk comes from frost during the flowering and budding season. The Robinvale area does have some frost during the spring, but the project is being planted to avoid frost pockets.
He says one of the attractions of the project is that the investor owns the wa-ter rights at the end of the project. Water licences have become a tradeable commodity along the Murray and the prices outstrip land values. He believes the investor will be able to sell the licence for between $33,000 to $35,000 at the end of the project. Select Harvest has first option on the licence.
"This price for the water licence is in addition to the returns form the proj-ect, which are expected to be 20 per cent per annum," he says.
The project has secured one of the first Australian Tax Office product rulings for this year.
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