The subsidiary of Al Dahra Holding, which is headquartered in Abu Dhabi, has acquired Perth based Glenvar Hay Pty Limited, a producer of grains, straw and hay since 1925; the company has an established sales network domestically in Australia across Asia and the Middle East.
Al Dahra said the deal was facilitated by the Western Australian Trade Office (WATO), and gives it access to a strategic growers and suppliers base, in addition to farming land in western Australia.
WATO set up an office in Dubai in 2002 with the aim of encouraging commercial trade development and enabling investment from businesses in the Middle East and Africa to Western Australia and vice versa.
Khadim Al Darei, managing director of Al Dahra Holding, said the deal will help it address the particular needs of the Asian and Middle East livestock markets.
Strategic location
The manufacturing plant of the new entity, which will be called Al Dahra Glenvar Hay Pty Limited, is located in the wheat growing belt of Australia, and Al Dahra said the location will allow it secure availability of raw materials at competitive rates.
The facility is also said to be close to key highways and shipping ports “allowing a swift and uninterrupted movement of containers.” The factory is equipped with “pressing and baling technologies, an in-house laboratory and storage facilities.”
With an annual production capacity of 2m metric tons, Al Dahra feed division targets the needs of the dairy industry and cattle growers.
The group owns and operates a large portfolio of forage cultivation lands, processing and baling facilities in the US, Spain, South Africa, Egypt and Pakistan.
Al Dahra ACX Global, a top US hay exporter based in California, is owned by Al Dahra Agriculture. It supplies forage, roughage, and feed products to Asian markets such as Japan, China, and South Korea as well as to the Middle East.
The Al Dahra feed business also operates a forage sourcing, trading and distribution hub out of Italy.
Last year, the National Bureau for Investments (NBI) in Sudan announced that Al Dahra Holding had expressed an interest in acquiring 2.4 million acres of land extending from Sahl al-Batana in the east to the River Nile state in northern Sudan.
The area known as al-Hawad valley is said to be ideal for maize cultivation.
NBI said that Al-Dahra Holding would invest $1bn in the first phase of the project.