CBH Group welcomes funding for essential agricultural infrastructure

The CBH Group welcomes today’s announcement from the Federal and State Governments to invest in essential agricultural infrastructure in the grain growing regions of Western Australia.  

The infrastructure projects that will be funded under Package 1 of the Agricultural Supply Chain Improvement (ASCI) initiative have attracted a total of $200 million in Federal and State funding. 

CBH Group Chief Executive Officer Ben Macnamara said the Government investment recognised the importance of the grain growing communities to the Western Australian and national economies.

“We are very pleased to see the funding commitment by State and Federal Governments into transport infrastructure which will enable Western Australian agricultural produce to reach export markets more efficiently,” Mr Macnamara said.

“It is particularly pleasing to see a further seven rail siding projects included in Package 1, building on the four rail projects that attracted the initial $22 million in funds in March 2021. 

“Improving the outloading capabilities of Western Australia’s grain supply chain is a major focus for CBH, and we are proud to invest alongside the Government’s rail siding projects with rapid rail loading equipment to ensure longer trains can be loaded faster and get to port more efficiently.

“The record 2021/22 harvest, which saw over 21.3 million tonnes delivered to CBH sites, highlights the need to continually improve the network to ensure we can move more tonnes to port to meet market demand.”

CBH has been working closely with the State Government on an agricultural supply chain freight strategy for many years, most recently on the Revitalising Agricultural Region Freight (RARF) Strategy, which was then expanded to ASCI.

“CBH will continue to provide feedback to the Federal and State Governments on projects that improve WA’s agricultural supply chain pathways and deliver the greatest benefit to WA growers,” Mr Macnamara said.

“CBH will continue to take a fact-based approach that prioritises projects that return value for all WA growers, particularly getting more grain to port to allow our growers to achieve a greater return for their grain.” 

“We are looking forward to continuing working with all stakeholders and delivering these Package 1 projects, and developing other ASCI packages in the future, for the benefit of our growers, regional communities and the agriculture industry.”