Kahlbetzer family's Twynam Agricultural out of the NSW Murray-Darling and into the African Nile

The Kahlbetzer family's company, Twynam Agricultural, which had sold more than half its agricultural portfolio in NSW in recent years, has its sights on Africa. Its new farming project is a venture involving the development of 50,000 hectares for cotton, maize, sorghum, soybean and other crops in Khartoum.

Twynam has registered a new company called Twynam Agriculture Africa and has advertised for a project manager.

Its emerging agricultural interests will centre on the Blue Nile state of Khartoum, in Sudan, Africa, but the group has also signalled expanding its cropping operations in Asia.

Over the past three years, the Kahlbetzer family's company has sold more than $200 million in land in addition to the $303 million in Murray Darling water licences sold to the government. It most recent sale was the 35,600-hectare Collymongle at Collarenebri in northern NSW.

It has yet to sell all its intended land holdings on the Murrumbidgee River.

The Australian Financial Review speculated the venture could be incentivised by the receipt of funding from the World Bank, which is seeking to boost global food supplies.

United States President Barack Obama has pledged to invest $US3.5?billion to spur agricultural development around the world, including support for?the World Bank’s global agriculture and food security program.

While Federal Minister for Agriculture Joe Ludwig said the Kahlbetzer family's sale of rural holdings was not an indication of where agriculture in Australia was headed, the high-profile farming Liberal Senator Bill Heffernan told the AFR he was sad to see the retreat of such a great family from agriculture in NSW.

"I am sad [to see the Kahlbetzers withdraw], but I have to say that everyone is entitled to their own destiny," Heffernan says, noting concerns as to the future of NSW cotton production.

NSW Deputy Premier and Nationals leader Andrew Stoner says he is disappointed by the move.

“It is always distressing to hear of?families divesting themselves of agricultural interests,” he says. “It is understandable that the proposal in the draft basin plan to remove from productive use over a short time frame a huge quantity of water – 2,750 gigalitres – would create uncertainty about the future of productive agriculture in the basin.”

It’s not the first time the group has ventured overseas, as it went into Argentina in 1982.The Twynam Agricultural Group was founded in the early 1970s by John Dieter Kahlbetzer and is now mostly run by his two sons, Johnny and Markus.

The Twynam agricultural property portfolios have a wide geographical base expanding over 117,000 hectares in Australia, seeking a sector spread to provide security against adverse weather conditions and commodity market fluctuations.

Its website says it employs around 56 people in operational roles in regional NSW, along with 15 staff at its Sydney head office.

Applications for the project manager job close May 6.

No doubt the new applicant will need to become quickly familiar with the recent threat of Egypt to withdraw from the Nile Basin Initiative (NBI) if the upstream countries are to insist on signing a framework cooperation agreement and the establishment of the new High Commission for Nile Waters without the consent and participation of Egypt and Sudan.

Egypt stressed that in the case of the establishment of this commission, or conclusion of an agreement that does not include the two countries, it would bring to an end the joint dam construction to be implemented within the NBI, according to a report by SudanNow Magazine.

The Nile River is the longest in the world, and the Nile Basin covers 3.36 million square kilometres, making it slightly larger than India.

There are 10 riparian countries — Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and Eritrea.

Sudan contains 63% of the basin, while Ethiopia has only 12% and Egypt 10%.