about us

I, George, come from a farming background, starting in south-western NSW. I was born at Lake Cargelligo and gained my farming experience on the family farm nearby. I purchased my first property in 1969: an undeveloped 6,487-acre mallee block in the Merriwagga district.

After a lot of hardships and hard work, we developed it for wheat and barley production. We progressively bought more land in the Tottenham/Nyngan districts of central NSW. We had to clear these predominantly timber/grazing blocks to make way for broadacre wheat production. We eventually had the properties fully developed, with a significant grain handling and storage complex. We also ran a contracting operation involving earthmoving, land clearing, and transportation. In addition, we ran a grazing operation, primarily wool and fat lamb production. In 1983, following record rainfall and excellent crop prospects, we sold the NSW properties.

After selling, we decided to take a good look at North American farming prospects before launching further in Australia. After extensive research and property inspections in both the USA and Canada, we concluded that greater opportunity still existed in Australia—particularly in Queensland. We ultimately decided to buy in central Queensland, in the Brigalow/Softwood Scrub belt, which presented good opportunities for farming and grazing due to the fertile soils.

We bought our first QLD property in 1984 and soon after acquired a neighbouring property.

We retained much of our farming and contracting equipment after the NSW sales and developed those properties, producing a variety of crops including wheat, sorghum, soybeans, cotton, chickpeas, sunflower, safflower, peanuts, and forage crops. We also ran a beef finishing and feedlotting operation, primarily for the Japanese and European markets. In addition, we developed an extensive irrigation system involving the construction of a river pumping station and two 4,000-megalitre storage dams. We further expanded our contracting business, which was highly dependent on diesel fuel—diesel representing one of our major operational costs.

My first introduction to biodiesel came from an English guy who did a 12-month work experience on an exchange programme with us on our farms. He told me about a fleet of buses using biodiesel made from rapeseed/canola oil in place of diesel. This was most interesting to me, as we grew a lot of oilseeds, including sunflower/safflower.

After checking at the time (mid-90s), we found that with crude oil prices being low and canola oil quite high, the economics just didn’t stack up. However, within a couple of years, crude almost doubled in price while the UCO and tallow market remained pretty steady. As a result, I could see a good potential margin existed and decided to build a small-scale biodiesel reactor, and later made up a larger unit on a low loader. Being new to the game, I joined up with an ex-Cargill engineer and a couple of other technically like-minded people, and we formed a group later known as ABG (Australian Biodiesel Group), which was the largest biodiesel company in Australia. As the margins seemed good at the time, we decided to build a 40-megalitre commercial-scale biodiesel plant at Berkeley Vale on the Central Coast, just north of Sydney, NSW. This plant we designed and constructed ourselves after extensive research into the technologies that existed internationally.

Feedstock was readily available in the 2001 period. There were about 800 tonnes of tallow and 180 tonnes of used cooking oils being produced daily in the country at the time. However, due to the attractive margins, we decided to float the company and build a 160-megalitre plant in Narangba, QLD.

We had a successful IPO in 2005 and constructed the plant over the next 18 months. Over that period, we had been mindful of the possibility of other competition entering the market, creating pressure on feedstocks, and had been keeping an eye open for a price-competitive, non-edible oil as an alternative—one that would not compete with higher-priced food-grade vegetable oils but would rather track fossil crude oil.

In 2002, after extensively researching non-edible oil-producing plants including jatropha, beauty leaf, candlenut, and castor, we found that a professor of engineering, Dr Udipi Shrinivasa, at the Bangalore Institute of Technology was doing research on Pongamia as a potential biofuel.

On reading his research and having a conversation with him by phone, my wife Stephanie and I decided to travel to India and check out his work. We were most impressed with what he had done and very impressed with the Pongamia tree.

He told us his interest in Pongamia stemmed from the potential of the tree to contribute to helping eliminate poverty among the vast number of people living in small villages—typically about 1,500 people per village living in abject poverty, estimated at over 750 million in India at the time. He related the story of how, when he was a child, his mother used to collect seeds from the Pongamia trees around her village to use as fuel for her cooking fire. This gave him the idea to explore Pongamia in depth. He found that the seed contained an oil content of between 30–40 percent and that it had a comparable energy density to most edible vegetable oils, such as canola. He decided to run the oil straight in a Toyota LandCruiser; he said it ran well for a few months, but over time it would develop carbon around the injectors and valves. He concluded that the carbon build-up problem occurred during the warm-up phase until the cylinder head reached operating temperature, when the heavy ends in the oil failed to burn. He then retrofitted a small additional tank for normal diesel and a valve system to start on normal diesel and switch over to straight Pongamia oil when up to operating temperature.

From then on, he didn’t have any more carbon build-up issues. As a side story relating to this, a company in Europe has developed a retrofit kit for highway trucks using the two-tank/fuel system with a small computer-controlled switch-over system—they indicated they were having great results, having fitted thousands of them in recent years in Europe with no objections from the OEMs.

The professor also told me—and later showed me—a village where he had installed (with government funding of about $8,000 USD) a small village module involving a small shed, an engine, a seed decorticator (a bit like a modified hammer mill) to remove the seed from the shell, a small oil press, and a tank for the oil. He found that the women and children could collect enough seeds to produce about a tonne of oil a day. The result was astounding, as it meant the village could run a generator and operate a cool room to prevent food spoilage, run a pump to water their vegetables, run a vehicle, and have some power for lighting—it positively changed the lives of the whole village.

It was such an interesting and inspiring story, and the fact that the trees were growing wild everywhere in India—in fact, he mentioned that, due to the vast number of trees in the country, over 11 million tonnes of seed fell to the ground every year.

On observing this, the Pongamia tree just seemed to tick all the boxes: it yielded potentially as well as palm oil; the seed could be stored for months prior to processing (unlike palm, which has to be processed within a very short period or it goes bad); it can be mechanically harvested; and, what’s even more significant, it’s a legume and will grow in poor soil with little fertiliser.

We decided to bring some seed and oil back to do our own trials.

On returning home, we did further research and found that it is actually native to Australia. As a result, we explored many of the locations where it is found. The native trees were quite varied and not very impressive. However, we eventually discovered that they had been planted in Brisbane for over 120 years—primarily as a street tree, but also in parks and cemeteries.

The council had selected them for their flowering (as a beautification tree); as a result, this long period of selection for more prolific flowering has meant these trees produce far more fruit than the wild trees—more flowers, more seeds. So, in the intervening period, we planted Pongamia; we also planted some jatropha, beauty leaf, and moringa. However, Pongamia stood out head and shoulders above anything else.

Back to the biodiesel situation: as the margins were quite good using the current available feedstocks, a number of new players entered the market, building new biodiesel processing facilities (estimated at $490 million). This expansion put massive pressure on the feedstock market.

To try to maintain supply, we were importing coconut oil from PNG and the Pacific islands.

This acute shortage of feedstock caused a price spike, making it very hard for the industry to survive—this was further exacerbated by the fact that government policy on biofuels (introduced by the federal government) made it almost impossible for a biodiesel producer to obtain a blender’s licence. This meant we were restricted to selling biodiesel to second-tier retailers, as we couldn’t retail directly to the public.

This changed our personal focus to feedstock, as we needed to control the oil well (feedstock).

We were concurrently working on the feedstock during this period and, having decided that Pongamia had the most potential, we decided to do a research project to help fast-track the commercialisation of Pongamia. We selected the University of Queensland’s centre of excellence for legume research (headed up at the time—2006—by Professor Peter Gresshoff). We met with him and discussed looking at a number of areas regarding Pongamia—particularly focusing on tissue culture, due to the fact that the trees outcross at pollination, which results in a highly variable population. We found that in our seed-grown trials, this variability was not going to be acceptable for the consistency and uniformity needed in a plantation setting.

We soon decided to extend our research with UQ and formed a joint company with their commercialisation arm, with the intention of sharing any IP that was generated. We funded a further $1 million to continue and add to our original perceived bottlenecks to the commercialisation of Pongamia. Along with developing a protocol for TC, we also looked at the genome and fingerprinting, salt tolerance, transgenics, and many others.

There were quite a number of scientists working on the project for many years, with further funding coming from us and some additional grants.

A protocol for tissue culture was developed, and we subsequently set up our own lab and had an experienced professional team attempt to commercialise the Pongamia TC protocol. However, after approximately eight years—having tried the UQ-developed protocol and all other known methods with little success—we decided to reluctantly abandon the TC program. The failure stemmed from an intercellular fungus that didn’t respond to external sterilisation and which emerged after 2–3 weeks from placing in the sterile container, ultimately overwhelming and killing the TC plant.

This was a costly and disappointing result, and I believe it held back the industry many years, as it became acutely evident that clonal propagation was the only way to go—as clearly evidenced by all of the plantings that had taken place in the past failing due to variability.

We realised that, to be successful, the only way was to select elite trees and use their clones.

During the UQ research period, it became obvious to us that the years of selection of the BCC trees had provided them with a very significant yield advantage over any of the native trees we’d observed anywhere, which only had small quantities of seeds.

Also, the variability factor of the BCC trees was great—as an example: if one were to harvest all of the Pongamia in the BCC area in a single season, they may only average about 11 kg. However, one in 50 may produce 50 kg, one in a thousand may produce 80 kg, one in 5,000 may produce 100 kg, and graduating to the very few at the top which have produced up to 200 kg (the Usain Bolts of Pongamia).

It was only after the failure of the TC program that we progressed and learned that we had to concentrate on vegetative cuttings if we wanted to be successful in propagating Pongamia at a cost-effective rate practical for large-scale broadacre plantations. Grafting is effective but costly for large-scale plantings.

We only began to realise about 3–4 years ago that juvenility was the key to vegetative cuttings. Through much trial and error, we have eventually been able to develop a reliable pathway with a high survival rate, making it possible to propagate at a reasonable cost. I believe this has been the single most significant breakthrough for the expansion of the Pongamia industry.

On working with Pongamia and observing them since 2002, we’re always encouraged when, within the huge variety of trees in the BCC area, we come across those high-performing trees. It keeps us going—as when you see the production of those special few, you realise there’s an industry here if we can only get them into a consistent plantation setting.

In 2011, the joint research program entered into an exclusive licence agreement with the BCC for the use of all the Pongamia genetic material. Over the years, we’ve travelled many tens of thousands of kilometres of the 5,750 kilometres of roads that make up the network in our licensed area. In recent years, the council supplied us with the map of where they were planted. Over the years, we’ve concentrated on observing and yield-testing the trees, progressively building a library of elite specimens, culling what we thought were suitable earlier and tightening up our criteria of what we accept. We not only look at yields but also tree architecture, disease resistance, and annual yielding (as some are biennial).

We’ve now accepted about 150 varieties into our library but have tended towards concentrating on around 30–50 of our favourites.

We also observe for changes that may take place in the trees from year to year.

Stephanie, who has a scientific background, has filled many notebooks with her records and descriptions of the trees over the 23 years.

We have genetically identified the trees that we include in our elite library.

As it happens, the person who is a world-renowned expert on woody plants and who does our genetic identification is also an expert in TC and is currently recommencing trials for BPA on controlling the internal fungi which caused us to abandon the TC—and possibly reactivating our TC program (work to date has shown promise).

As the research project we had with UQ ended in about 2016, the joint research company novated the licence with the BCC to BPA.

During our nursery and research farm expansion period, we did a number of projects including:

2006: Purchased a 7-acre nursery at Palmview and set up a propagation facility for seed-grown Pongamia and fitted out a tissue culture lab; commenced TC work the following year.

We also purchased a 110-acre property at Elimbah for a Pongamia trial and research farm.

Commenced a research project with the University of Queensland.

2007–2008: Planted selected seed-grown trees on 4 hectares on the Elimbah trial farm and produced 200,000 selected seedlings.

Expanded our research program with UQ with an additional $1 million contribution.

2008: Entered into a trial project with Origin Energy of 2 hectares on the property at Spring Gully, Roma, to utilise RO coal seam gas water.

2009–2010: Extended the trial to 300 hectares on Spring Gully.

2011: Purchased from Elders two Central Coast properties near Clairview—Rangeview and Hallevale—which were ex-MIS scheme eucalyptus plantation blocks, with the intention of planting them with Pongamia. We cleared the failed spotted gum plantations and sought to get a clearing licence under the Newman government high-value agriculture exemption for the remaining virgin timber. This we received and subsequently cleared the balance of the virgin timber. However, the government didn’t allow Pongamia, as it didn’t meet the criteria as a proven crop.

2013: Planted a 2-hectare trial on Rangeview. Planted a trial on Meandu Coal Mine.

2015: Purchased the 274,000-hectare property Kendall River Station in the high-rainfall belt of Cape York Peninsula to plant Pongamia at scale, after an extensive due diligence period to check its suitability and likelihood of receiving a clearing licence under the HVA program. After a pre-lodgement meeting with all the relevant government agencies—none of whom suggested the application would fail—we went ahead with the purchase.

Unfortunately, with the government change, a deal was done with the Greens to cancel the Newman clearing legislation and ban all further clearing of old-growth forest in Queensland.

2016: After having had the project cancelled, we subsequently applied for a carbon project under the savanna burning methodology and became the proponents—running the project for an 8-year period until we eventually sold the property to the State Government in 2024.

All in all—no matter how suitable the country is—there seemed to be roadblocks to prevent the implementation of such projects, which could potentially prove highly profitable and beneficial to both the environment and the region, with significant job opportunities for local and Indigenous people.

During the period from 2008 onwards, we did many trials with equipment prototypes to test dehulling/decorticating seed, seed cleaning, and oil extraction processes. We also did many small trials in many locations.

Over time, as carbon has become more of a focus—along with our feedstock and fuel security argument—there’s been a real resurgence of interest in Pongamia, and I must say time has only strengthened my belief that Pongamia has great potential, as it has so many great benefits for northern Australia and much of the low-frost-risk regions of the world.

The primary benefits include: It can be an additional source of income for cattle operations, producing:

fuel, food (both needed in a high-cost remote environment), carbon, and enhancement of pastures due to nitrogen increase available to pasture—and being able to fatten more cattle on the same area to boot.

The carbon sequestration and soil carbon benefits are also significant.

SAF mandates to offset carbon being introduced shortly (Singapore has been the first, commencing just last month)—this has become a fast-approaching imperative that Pongamia is well positioned to benefit from,

as HVO is the least-cost option route for SAF. Canola suffers from the “fuel vs food” aspect, and palm oil from the “rainforest destruction” criticism.

We have formed partnerships including licence agreements with Investancia and Rio Tinto; supply agreements internationally; nursery/propagation in advanced talks with international firms eager for Pongamia cultivation.

Our enduring passion for Pongamia drives us to realise its transformative potential for sustainable energy, agriculture, and the environment.