Australian agriculture and agribusiness executive pay in 2021-22

Mr Spurway is managing director and chief executive officer of GrainCorp, the grain handling company that dominates the east-coast grain market.

Like many of Australia's grain growers, Mr Spurway enjoyed a bumper harvest in 2021-22, which saw his total remuneration more than double the previous year's $1.987 million package.

That made him the highest-paid agribusiness figure in Australia in 2021-22, the most recent year for full-year reported results.

ACM Agri has analysed the financial results of Australia's leading agribusiness companies, as well as commonwealth-funded and industry-owned research and development corporations, and also some high profile government roles.

It revealed the heads of publicly-listed companies have substantially higher salary packages, often boosted by share rights issued as incentives, than their industry-funded or government counterparts.

It also revealed a lack of transparency by industry-owned organisations, who place executive leader's pay into salary pools, giving levy-payers no clear picture on what each top executive receives.

Equally, without the reporting rules of their ASX-listed counterparts, high-profile privately-owned companies such as Hancock Agriculture and Consolidated Pastoral Company and foreign-owned entities such as Saputo or Fonterra do not reveal the salary packages of their local bosses.

Our analysis revealed agribusiness executives are keeping pace with other Australian publicly-listed companies.

The $4.745 million paid to GrainCorp's Robert Spurway compared favourably to Qantas chief executive officer and managing director Alan Joyce, whose salary has attracted significant attention in recent times.

Mr Joyce was paid a total salary of $5.575 million in 2021-22, consisting mainly of base pay of $2.146 million and shares worth $3.272 million.

Mr Spurway's $4.745 million consisted of a $1.044 million base salary and $3.7 million in incentive payments

While Mr Joyce runs a company currently valued at $12 billion (market capitalisation), GrainCorp is valued at $2 billion.

As a rule of thumb, this should mean Mr Joyce would be on a significantly higher package than the boss of GrainCorp.

However, Mr Joyce presided over an after-tax loss of $860 million for 2021-22, while Mr Spurway's GrainCorp notched an after-tax profit of $380.4 million for the same period.

So while Qantas is a bigger company, GrainCorp was more profitable in the last financial year.

Rimfire Resources managing director Mick Hay said while it was difficult to compare roles from company to company, agriculture executive salaries did compare favourably to wider businesses.

"At that level their skill sets are transferable, and if agriculture businesses weren't comparable, they wouldn't be attracting those people," said Mr Hay, who recruits for CEO roles in agriculture.

"There is a little bit of a misnomer that agriculture is lagging way behind," he said.

"I personally don't think that is the case. I think that over the last five-plus years agriculture has certainly been keeping pace with where it should be."

The second-highest-paid agribusiness executive was soon-to-be retired Elders managing director and chief executive officer Mark Allison, who, in 2021-22, received a total package of $3.802 million, which included a base salary of $1.094 million, plus superannuation and long- and short-term incentive payments.

Mr Allison's total pay was well up on his package of $2.946 million in 2020-21.

Mr Allison has overseen a remarkable turnaround in Elders' fortunes since his appointment in 2014, boosted by booming livestock prices and a surging rural property market in recent years.

Ricegrowers Limited chief executive officer Rob Gordon received $2.354 million in salary and cash bonuses, plus another $1.052 million in shares, to take his total compensation to $3.406 million for 2021-22. Mr Gordon's total package in 2020-21 was $3.002 million.

The highest paid female agribusiness executive was Incitec Pivot managing director and chief executive officer Jeanne Johns, whose total of $3.257 million in 2021-22, which included base salary and incentives, made her the fourth-highest paid executive overall.

Incitec Pivot has come to rely more heavily on its explosives business for revenue rather than its historic mainstay of fertiliser.

Ms Johns' salary was a substantial rise on the previous year's total remuneration of $2.135 million.

Ms Johns was one of three women chief executives in this analysis of 32 companies and organisations.

Treasury Wine Estates Managing director and chief executive officer Tim Ford earned a salary of $1.539 million plus extra bonuses of $1.148 million to total $2.687 million in 2021-22.

a2 Milk managing director and chief executive officer David Bortolussi received a total package of $2.651 million in 2021-22, which included base pay, incentives and an allowance of $226,416. His pay packet was a 28 per cent increase on the previous year's $2.057 million. a2 Milk is Australia's second biggest company, valued at $4 billion.

Nufarm managing director and chief executive officer Greg Hunt, a former Elders managing director, was paid a total package of $2.497 million in 2021-22, up from $2.018 million the previous year.

Ridley Corporation managing director and chief executive officer Quinton Hildebrand was paid a total of $1.595 million in 2021-22, a slight rise on the previous year's remuneration of $1.527 million.

Select Harvests managing director and chief executive officer Paul Thompson was paid $1.266 million in 2021-22, a hefty rise on his total 2020-21 package of $762,645

Bega Group chief executive officer Paul van Heerwaarden, who left the company earlier this year, earned $1.239 million in 2021-22, which included incentive payments. This was well down on his $1.598 million total package the previous year.

Hugh Killen, who suddenly quit the role of Australian Agricultural Company managing director and chief executive in June 2022 (a week short of the end of the financial year) received a total package of $1.078 million in 2021-22.

Former AACo chief operating officer David Harris has since been appointed to the managing director and chief executive role. It has been reported he is on a fixed salary of $700,000 salary, including superannuation. Any further incentive payments won't be known until the company reports its annual results for 2022-23 later this year.

Wide Open Agriculture managing director Ben Cole was paid $422,727 in 2021-22, which consisted mainly of salary and share options. This was well down on Dr Cole's $734,716 package the previous year.

Synlait Milk chief executive officer Grant Watson, who took on the role in January 2022, was paid $421,567 in 2021-22. However, the full-year package for the highest-paid role listed in the company's annual report was $850,000-$860,000.

Namoi Cotton chief executive officer John Stevenson received $542,535 in 2021-22, while live animal exporter Wellard Group executive chairman John Klepec received $421,887 in 2021-22.

Duxton Water, the only ASX-listed water-trading company, does not list executive pay, as the company does not actually have any employees. Instead, it has appointed Duxton Capital (Australia) Pty Ltd "to manage its assets and implement its investment strategy". For this service, Duxton Water paid Duxton Capital $2.211 million for the 2022 calendar year.

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In the ever-diminishing pool of agricultural co-operative companies, CBH Group chief executive officer Ben Macnamara was paid $831,000, which included a base salary of $799,00. CBH dominates the West Australian grain handling sector.

Another co-operative, northern NSW dairy company Norco Milk, has endured a horror 12 months, besieged by record flooding at its Lismore-base and surrounding dairy-farm heartland. The salary package of chief executive Michael Hampson was not freely available.

In the government sector, Federal Agriculture Minister Murray Watt earns $374,428 a year, excluding a $32,000 electorate allowance granted to all federal MPs.

However, Senator Watt's salary pales in comparison to the head of the department he oversees. Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry secretary Andrew Metcalfe was paid a base salary of $831,861 in 2021-22.

Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority chief executive officer Lisa Croft, who is currently on leave from the role, was paid $422,447 in 2021-22.

Murray-Darling Basin Authority chief executive Andrew McConville, who started in the role in mid 2022, earns a reported salary of $443,000 a year. His predecessor, Phillip Glyde, was paid a total package of $455,752 in 2020-21.

In the industry-funded and -owned research and development sector, Meat and Livestock Australia managing director Jason Strong's salary was mixed into a $1.42 million pool paid out across all nine of the company's directors, according to the company's 2021-22 annual report. However, the report revealed the total cost of MLA non-executive directors was $649,377. This would leave $770,483 for the only executive board director - Mr Strong. However the report did not state that amount was paid to Mr Strong.

Dairy Australia managing director David Nation's salary was contained in the total $2.965 million paid across board members and key management personnel in 2021-22.

Australian Pork Limited also did not disclose the compensation of chief executive officer Margo Andrea, instead placing it in a pool of $1.368 million, which the APL annual report said was: "The aggregate compensation made to directors and other members of key management personnel of the company."

The report did not name the key management personnel, or how many there were.

Horticulture umbrella body Hort Innovation reported its eight-member executive team, including chief executive officer Brett Fifield, was paid $2.5 million, including superannuation, leave and bonuses, in 2021-22.

LiveCorp chief executive officer Wayne Collier's salary was contained in a pool of $766,938 paid to board directors and senior management, with LiveCorp's 2021-22 annual report stating: "The total annual limit for directors' remuneration, in aggregate, is $250,000". This left $516,938 for "key management personnel".

Australian Wool Innovation chief executive officer John Robert's salary was contained in a $2.364 million pool payment for the 10-member AWI management team, according to the 2021-22 annual report.

Agriculture's four commonwealth statutory research development corporations were more transparent in revealing executive pay.

Grains Research and Development Corporation managing director Nigel Hart was on an estimated base salary of $406,000 (based on earning $104,713 in 2021-22 for the three months he was managing director in that financial year.)

Wine Australia chief executive officer Martin Cole earned a total salary package of $241,161 in 2021-22.

AgriFutures Australia, which oversees research for a suite of agriculture industries, such as chicken meat, honey and rice, listed managing director John Harvey's total salary package at $374,913 in 2021-22.

Cotton Research and Development Corporation executive director Ian Taylor earned $309,217 in 2021-22, which included superannuation and other benefits.

Rimfire's Mick Hay said RDC executive roles were highly sought after, but still needed to offer competitive packages to attract good candidates.

"Sometimes it is difficult to attract talent, as the commercial world has the ability to offer a broader range of compensation mechanisms. Some of the RDC organisations, they're quite often not geared in quite the same way.

"So if RDC organisations are looking for a specific skill set that is coming out of the commercial environment, they may need to look at how they remunerate slightly differently."

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