KALBAR Operations, developer of the Fingerboards mineral sands project at Glenaladale, 20 kilometres north west of Bairnsdale, will become a sheep and cattle producer.
The Fingerboards Pastoral Company will produce sheep and beef cattle within and adjacent to the Fingerboards project area.
Kalbar chief executive Jozsef Patarica said the available farming land had made an agricultural enterprise possible and that grazing was a viable means of maintaining the land.
“We want to look after the land, and we don’t want to see it degenerate or become overtaken by feral animals and weeds,” he said.
Kalbar will run the pastoral company as a commercial farming operation, and expects it to be self-sufficient within a few years.
“The farming activities would focus on breeding and raising sheep and cattle and potentially developing cropping and mixed farming in time,” Mr Patarica said.
“Our initial plan is to employ an experienced farm manager to look at the properties and see what needs to be done in terms of infrastructure and improvements.
“Once the farm infrastructure is in place, we hope to have livestock introduced to the land in the second half of 2021.”
The move by Kalbar Operations into agriculture is consistent with other companies which have successfully established pastoral concerns in other parts of Australia as part of their broader mining operations.
